


Little Black Book

by belletylers



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: Alcohol consumption and other merriment, Also Bisexual!Erin, EVENTUAL holtzbert, F/F, In which Erin receives flirting tips from a smitten Holtzmann, i'm currently on summer vacation and was hit with inspiration, vacation fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2017-03-22
Packaged: 2018-09-13 08:09:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 45,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9114427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belletylers/pseuds/belletylers
Summary: Erin's plans for the team to go on a weekend vacation are hijacked by and argument between Patty and Holtzmann over who in the group has the most 'game'. The relaxing getaway instead becomes something of a competition, with pretty surprising results.





	1. Chapter 1

"We need a vacation," Erin declared, as the large wooden doors to the firehouse swung shut behind her.

"Vacation?" Abby replied, following behind with a grin plastered across her face and ectoplasm dripping from her hair, arms and torso. "After a bust like that?"

In each of her hands, Erin held the handles of very heavy and probably radioactive cases of equipment, making her fingers cramp and her arms ache ferociously.

“ _Yes,_ after a bust like that!” Erin snapped. An abandoned factory warehouse across town had been their scene of choice today, and boy, it was a doozy. The whole place had become a hub for former employees who'd been injured or killed on the job. It would’ve gone unnoticed if not for a couple of guys who’d…well, set up shop there quite comfortably. So not only had they come back to the lab with a number of new specimen to study, but they’d also had a hand in uncovering a major drug bust. So that was a plus.

On the upside they had a new-found mutual respect with the New York City Police Department, many of whom were no longer so quick to mock the work of the Ghostbusters after two of their finest detectives had spotted a Class 4 apparition in the middle of a crime scene. On the downside…God, there was just _so much slime._

Erin squatted and carefully placed the heavy gear on the floor. Relief flooded to each cramping finger joint as she uncurled her fists from around the handles. Each digit dripped with green goo; she could feel it in her hair, in her clothes, running down her back as she straightened herself.

“We’ve got work to do, Erin,” said Abby, who was almost equally covered in slime but appeared to care only about half as much. “This could be a major breakthrough for us! This kind of raw data is unprecedented!”

"Abby, I'm serious." She followed her colleague as she pottered happily around the lab, gathering tubes, vials and notebooks to begin her observations. "Don't you think we should be firing on all cylinders before we start a project like this? This amount of ghosts in one place...it could mean there's a leak somewhere. We make a mistake or a miscalculation and the whole city could be in trouble."

Abby huffed and stopped walking, her back turned to Erin, who continued, hoping she was maybe getting through to her friend.

"It's just...we worked some pretty long hours to get these ghosts locked up but they're in there now. They aren't going anywhere."

Abby pursed her lips in in frustration. It was a sweet deal the four of them had going on here -- well, five if you included Kevin, which they rarely did except when it was time to pay him. Since the battle in Times Square, things had been progressing fast for them. Really fast. The combination of generous funding and a whole lot of data had made for long, gruelling days for the last couple of months. It was taxing on all of them, and despite the strength of their collective passion for their craft, this kind of workload wasn't sustainable, and Abby knew it all too well.

Perhaps a few days away from the ghosts and the firehouse wasn’t the worst idea. Erin was right about the dangers of a miscalculation when working with the paranormal. Besides, the idea of a weekend spent by the pool or the beach, sipping cocktails with her three favourite people…it didn’t sound too bad.

She turned to meet Erin's stubborn gaze and bit the inside of her cheek, and Erin thought she might win this battle, right up until the sound of voices in the hall broke their focus.

“Uh-uh, Holtzy, no _way,_ ” came Patty’s voice as she and Holtzmann came through the firehouse door.

“Sorry, Patty, it’s just a fact,” Holtzmann replied, all lopsided smiles and swagger. She was carrying her pack over one shoulder, and she slung it off in one smooth motion, tossing a grin in Erin’s direction and managing to look good while doing it—despite the fairly large amount of ectoplasm in her hair.

“It’s not a fact, because you don’t have any proof,” Patty snapped, emphatically placing a box of gear on a workbench. “I don’t need to be a scientist to know that!”

“Guys,” Abby snapped, grabbing their attention and causing them to momentarily abandon their squabble. “Erin wants to go on vacation.” She sounded neither excited nor disappointed, leaving the final decision up to the others.

Patty seemed to forget the debate, her eyes lighting up. "Oh, for real? That would be amazing! All these long hours have really taken it out of me.” She tilted her head to the side and massaged the tight muscles in her own neck.

"You know, my brother has a house on the coast," Holtzmann added. "One phone call and it's all ours for the weekend."

"Really? This is what you guys want?" Abby said, looking around the circle at the other three women.

"It _would_ be nice, Abby," Erin answered on behalf of all of them.

She sighed. "Okay. Fine. Let's do it."

Patty let out a whoop and Erin smiled brightly at Abby in response. Holtzmann took a step forward and swung an arm across Erin's shoulders, and then the other across Patty's. "Ladies, this is gonna be fun."

"I'm gonna go take a shower," Abby said. "We'll talk details later." With that, she turned and headed up the firehouse stairs towards the bathroom. Holtzmann took a step back, removing her arms from her friends’ shoulders, and started unpacking all the gear.

“So, uh, what were you guys arguing about?” Erin asked, looking anxiously between them. She almost didn’t want to know. Patty and Holtzmann playfully bickered often, about anything and everything.

“We were discussin’ who, out of all of us,” Patty did a circular gesture with a manicured finger, “has the most game.”

“Now it’s obviously between Patty and I, but Patty thinks it’s her and I think…” Holtzmann held her arms out in a presentational way, doing a quick 360 on the spot to complete the display. “Well, I mean, _c’mon_.”

“I’m sorry, ‘game’?” Erin questioned. The two contenders exchanged a look.

“You know, _game,”_ Patty said, looking back to Erin. “Style, swagger, flair.”

“Panache,” Holtz added in a low voice, demonstrating the meaning of the word with little more than a look in Erin’s direction and a mischievously quirked brow. She pushed her yellow-lensed glasses down her nose and looked at her over the top of them. “Getting numbers for your little black book.”

“Oh.” Erin shifted where she stood, feeling her pulse pick up just the slightest bit. She understood alright, if the sudden appearance of butterflies in her stomach were anything to go by. Distractedly, she adjusted her jumpsuit, making the slime crawl down her spine afresh. Trying to distract herself from the feeling, she considered the options, and realised pretty quickly that she'd been left out of the race. “Hold on," she protested, a finger in the air, "how do you know _I_ don’t have the most game?”

There was a heavy pause in the air as Holtzmann and Patty caught each other’s eyes. Simultaneously, their mouths twisted and their lips curled before the bellows of laughter eventually won out. It was stomach-clutching, gasping-for-air type laughter, the kind that couldn’t be faked.

“Guys,” Erin said timidly, not liking this feeling. “ _Guys._ ” It was to no avail. The other women continued to wheeze and splutter. Erin heard footsteps behind her and looked over her shoulder to see Abby, still covered in slime.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Erin said quickly, flatly, not wanting Abby to join in. “What are you doing? I thought you were going to go shower.”

“I was, but I forgot—” she reached for a label-less clear plastic bottle with yellow liquid inside, “—Holtz’s special anti-ghost soap.”

"It's actually just detergent," Holtz replied, wiping her knuckles across her cheek to catch what Erin was sure were fake tears of laughter. "But that anti-grime formula really cuts through the ghost goo. But who cares about that! You'll never believe what Erin just said." She settled herself on a stool and propped both feet up on a workbench.

"She said--" Patty started, but the laughter hit her anew and Holtzmann caught it like a cold. Erin rolled her eyes and finished the sentence for them.

“I said I had the most game,” Erin finished, receiving fresh peals of laughter from her colleagues. Abby just looked at her blankly.

“Game?”

“Yeah.” Erin avoided Abby’s eyes, trying to act like she could still believe the words she was saying despite the relentless treatment she was getting from the others. “You know, swagger, flair.” She did a number of what she thought were rather cool poses to reinforce her statement. "Panache."

“No, I know what it is, I just can’t believe you think you _have_ it!” said Abby, bursting into laughter along with the others.

“Phew, man, I needed that today,” Patty said.

“Seriously, Erin, that is priceless,” Abby added, still wheezing.

“Why?” Erin demanded, hands on slimy hips. “I’ve had boyfriends. Plural. Men express interest in me.”

“That’s because you’re _beautiful_ , not because you’ve got game,” Holtzmann said, in a manner so genuine and matter-of-fact that Erin wasn't even sure how to respond. She met the blonde's eyes, but only for a second. She seemed far more concerned on the debate than her own words.   

“I...well--" Erin stuttered.

"I think what Holtzmann's trying to say is that you don't really need game, because the guys do most of the talking," Abby clarified.

"That's not true! I do plenty of talking."

"Erin, I've known you since you were sixteen and not once have your attempts at flirting ever led to anything."

"What about with Kevin? Yesterday he bought me a burrito."

"Um, no, you ate the rest of his burrito when he said he was gonna throw it away," Abby corrected. Out of the corner of her eye, Erin saw Holtzmann roll her eyes, though she wasn’t sure whether it was about the burrito or something else.

Erin huffed and searched her memory thoroughly, but came up short. In the only examples that came to mind, the party on the receiving end of Erin's attempt at flirting had definitely not known that that was what she had been trying to do.

"Like, okay, if there had to be an order, I would clearly be first," Patty said with all her normal confidence. Holtzmann started to protest but Patty just held up a hand in a swift gesture to shut her up. "Then Holtzy, then Abby, and then you, Erin."

"You forgot Kevin," Abby reminded her.

"Oh yeah! Okay so me, Holtzy, Abby, Kevin, Erin."

"KEVIN has more game than me? Kevin can't even hold a conversation!" Erin protested, balling her hands into fists.

"Don't need words to speak the language of love, baby," Patty said with a toothy grin.

"I agree," Abby added, and Erin's jaw dropped open indignantly. "I mean, Kevin's not ahead of you by much but he is ahead."

"Well, Abby, I don't see you defending yourself, third place!"

Abby shrugged. "Hey, I get mine, but I'll take third place any day against these two." She gestured to Patty and Holtzmann, who exchanged a proud look. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got ectoplasm in places where it should not be." Detergent bottle in hand, Abby climbed the stairs to the bathroom once again.

“Patty, I must remind you, I have an _excellent_ track record,” Holtzmann insisted.

“Guys, aren’t we a little…” She paused, not wanting to say ‘old’. “Mature? For this sort of thing?”

“Whatever, girl,” Patty replied. “Don’t be bitter about your last place. You’ve got…other skills!”

“Patty’s right,” Holtzmann said. “You, uh…” She gestured towards Erin. “You have nice hair! And you own more tweed than anyone I know.” Patty nodded, as if this was an acceptable answer.

"Man, I'm starving," Patty said, heading for the kitchen. "I'm gonna go raid the fridge.” She pointed at Holtzmann. “This ain’t over.”

"Don't touch my petri dishes!" Holtzmann called. Erin didn't even want to know what she was growing in there.

“What, uh, started this whole thing, anyway?”

Holtz clicked her tongue. “We parked Hearse II in a tow zone. Patty talked the parking inspector out of writing us a ticket in exchange for her phone number.”

“Wow, that’s…impressive.” Erin tried to imagine herself pulling off a feat like that. Didn’t seem very likely. “And you could do better?”

“Could. Have. Will.” Holtzmann smiled crookedly, leaning back in her chair. “Who do _you_ think has more game? Me, or Patty?”

“I don’t…I don’t know.” She took a seat on a stool opposite Holtzmann, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear awkwardly. “I don’t think I’ve seen enough of your, uh, skills to make a call on that.”

Holtzmann sucked in her lips until her mouth formed a thin line, plucking a pencil from her birds’ nest of a hairstyle and writing a note at the top of a page. She murmured aloud each word as she wrote it: “Need. To. Make. Adjustments. Re: Erin.”

“What?” Erin asked, confused.

"Still, y’know,” the blonde continued, ignoring the question and speaking at normal volume again. “What's a hypothesis without proof? We are scientists, are we not, Dr Gilbert? I need evidence. Maybe I can create a machine that measures the changes in hormone levels and then set us up with a series of test subjects--" She scribbled down notes rapidly.

"Or, maybe," Erin replied innocently, "and I'm just brainstorming here, but maybe we could talk about something else because this is dumb?"

Holtzmann scoffed. "Somebody's a sore loser," she said in a sing-songy voice, still scribbling.

She let it go. "So your brother has a beach house, huh?" That seemed to grab Holtz’s attention.

"Yeah, and it's pretty big, too. And there's this great bar nearby that he always talks about--" Holtzmann froze. She swung her legs off the table and sat bolt upright. "Erin, you're a genius!"

"I don't--what?"

"This is fantastic," she continued, pacing excitedly. "A controlled environment and a level playing field of strangers will give us the perfect experimental conditions."

"Jillian, _what_ are you talking about?" Erin asked, fearing where this might be leading.

"I'm talking about swagger. Flair." She grinned. "Panache. And most of all, science. I'm gonna prove who has the most game once and for all."

Before Erin could question further or object, Holtzmann darted out of the room, phone in hand, passing Patty on the stairs, who almost lost her grip on the grilled cheese she was carrying. They heard her talking excitedly into the receiver before she was even at the top.

"Damn! What the hell is she doing?" Patty asked.

"I honestly do not know," said Erin. "But I think she may have figured out a way to use science to win this argument."

"Whatever it takes to prove I was right, I'll take it."

Holtzmann suddenly emerged at the top of the stairs, fists in the air. "My brother said we could use his place this weekend." She then bowed in a showoff-ish way, clearly very proud of herself. "Get yourselves packed, ladies. The Ghostbusters are going on vacation. Now, if you need me, I'll be drawing up plans for the greatest modern science experiment of our time."

Erin smiled. She had gotten her way, though she wasn't sure what else she was in for.

…

“Ladies, you may be wondering why I summoned you here today,” Holtzmann began, pacing back and forth across her lab before an audience of her three fellow team members. It had only been a few hours since she had locked herself up there, for what they could only assume was one of her fits of inspiration.  

“Not really,” Patty answered.

“Did you finish that ghost grenade launcher thingy?” Erin asked, hopefully. She loved the cool weapons a lot.

“The reason,” she continued dramatically, “is two-fold. Firstly, I have spent the afternoon devising a plan which will help us to determine which of us truly possesses the most game.” She picked up a small pile of pamphlets from a bench and handed them to Abby. “Take one, pass it along,” she instructed.

Abby frowned. “When did you have time to _make_ these?”

“The game is simple, ladies. I’ve created a points system which you can find on page two of your pamphlet. We will visit an establishment nearby to our base location and attempt to acquire the most points within a certain timeline. You get one point if someone buys you a drink, two for a phone number, etcetera. When the sun rises, the person with the most points is declared victorious.”

“And what will she receive?” Patty asked, sounding confident.

“Glory, respect,” Holtzmann answered. “And, obviously, a little action.” She grinned as Patty reached over for a high-five.

“This is actually pretty clever, Holtzmann,” Abby commented, examining her pamphlet. “Who knows, maybe I’ll even have a shot at the top spot.”

“I don’t know, guys,” Erin interjected. “This wasn’t really what I had in mind when I suggested a vacation.”

“Don’t worry, this is only one night. We got two more nights for all the normal vacation stuff,” Patty assured her.

Erin bit her lip. She still wasn’t sure that anything good could come of this silly feud—really, all she wanted was to spend time with her friends in a non-fatal environment. Switch off her brain and relax with the people who made her feel safe. Not spend her one weekend off making small-talk with strangers in some bar. Still, she remained in last place, and her lack of participation only cemented that. Erin Gilbert did not like to lose.

And maybe it would be fun, the four of them hitting the town, letting their hair down. The last time she’d seen Abby drunk had been in college, where they’d both thrown up all over someone’s dorm room. But they were adults now, and they would be able to handle their drinks like the sophisticated, proton-gun-toting, ghost-hunting ladies they were.

There was nothing about Patty that suggested anything other than ‘life of the party’, what with her vivacious spirit and raucous energy. And Holtzmann…well, she couldn’t quite imagine it, but she was intrigued.

“Alright. Goodbye, fifth place!” Erin declared.

“Actually, since Kevin’s not coming you’re technically in fourth place,” Holtzmann corrected.

Erin grinned smugly. “I’m getting better already.”

“The second reason I called you all,” she went on, “is ‘cause I totally finished that ghost grenade launcher and it is _awesome._ ”

There were collective whoops and gasps from the other three.

“Garage?” Abby suggested immediately.

“Garage,” Erin agreed.

Since they’d moved, they no longer had to use an alleyway for their equipment tests. They now had a huge garage that had once been used to park firetrucks when this place had still been an operational firehouse.

“Alright, but make it fast,” said Patty. “We're leavin' first thing tomorrow, and I’ve got a beauty routine to go through if I’m gonna be at the top of my game for the big night.”


	2. Chapter 2

Holtz’s brother’s place was a frustrating four hours away by car, though it felt longer with Patty reminding them all that they could’ve just gone for an Airbnb somewhere closer. Holtzmann promised, though, that it’d be worth it. They loaded up and clambered into the rental Jeep at 9:00, suitcases safely stashed in the trunk, a takeaway coffee in each cup holder provided by Patty, and Abby taking the first of four hour-long shifts at the wheel.

They’d convinced the Mayor’s office to pay for a new hearse, since their old one hadn’t survived the battle, and it had been decked out like the old one “but better.” When Abby had asked what exactly Holtz had meant by “better”, she had simply responded with, “louder sirens.” But Erin had thought that Hearse II was a little conspicuous for a weekend getaway, what with the bright red stripe and the big cartoon ghost painted on the side. So, the Jeep it was.

Abby and Holtzmann bickered over the radio for the first ten minutes, Holtzmann leaning forward between the seats to fiddle with the dials and Abby slapping her hand away every time like she was a pesky bug. Eventually, they came to the agreement that the driver should choose the music. Abby favoured easy listening, which was dull, but tolerable.

The highways and by-ways passed them by mostly without incident. Erin chose to spend this first leg of the journey watching the great state of New York pass them by, urban fading to suburban, and then fading to stretches of green, leafy trees, and eventually just open freeway.

Patty would occasionally point out something noteworthy in her copy of _Cosmo,_ which she read at alternating intervals with a thick, dog-eared romance novel, swapping one for the other whenever she felt bored. Holtz made them stop for ice cream, which Abby allowed, but only because they had pistachio. At the end of each hour, they rotated positions, with Holtzmann driving second and Abby switching to the passenger side.

Holtzmann immediately turned the radio over to golden oldies—because of course she did—and started singing along, hands tapping out rhythms on the steering wheel and the top half of her body dancing out the best groove it could while also not driving them off the road. It was kind of impressive.

Jillian Holtzmann was a multitasker. She could dance and drive, she could dance and eat—an almost daily occurrence—and she could also dance while wielding blowtorches. Erin smiled at the memory. They’d hardly known each other back then, and Holtz had nearly set the place ablaze for a few good dance moves. And to get a rise out of her.

The whole bizarre routine had lasted less than a minute, but here Erin was, thinking about it, months later.

Wow, Erin thought, maybe Holtzmann _did_ have game.

Just before it was Erin’s turn to take over the driving, Holtzmann pulled into a gas station on the side of the freeway. It was tiny, with only a couple of pumps and a little store, but it contained snacks and, more importantly, a bathroom. Abby and Patty considered those two things top priorities. When they went inside to do what they needed to do, Holtzmann pumped the gas and Erin slid out onto the concrete ground.

She curled her fingers into fists and stretched them high into the air, back arching and tension flowing out of her. She felt the hem of her shirt rise just enough that the breeze skimmed her belly. It was after eleven, but the morning of driving had left her feeling sluggish and slow.

“Do you think they have coffee?” Erin asked Holtzmann.

Holtzmann looked over her shoulder to examine the dilapidated establishment. The roof was crumbling. What was once white paint had turned a dreary grey from years of enduring weather, and a greasy-looking man stood behind the counter, looking grim and grumpy. Erin thought that if she asked him for coffee, he would more likely be inclined to spit in a cup of hot water and make her pay for it.

“Wouldn’t risk it,” she finally answered.

Erin huffed but nodded. She would perk up eventually.

She made way for the door to the driver’s seat, when Holtzmann held up a hand, indicating that she should stop. Before Erin could question her, or even react, she hung the nozzle back in its place and then scurried back to Erin’s door, opening it for her, and standing there with a goofy grin on her face.

“Thank you, Holtz,” Erin said plainly, climbing into the seat. “But you know, your competition hasn’t started yet.” She smirked, happy with herself for the quip.

The left corner of Holtzmann’s mouth twitched upwards in amusement. “I don’t award points for chivalry,” she replied, shutting the door and circling the front of the car before climbing in beside Erin.  

While fiddling absentmindedly with the radio, since that was now her duty as driver, Erin thought about the night ahead and what an operation it was. The whole thing was kind of freaking her out, honestly. Try as she may to put it out of her mind, the closer they got to their destination, the more intrusive the thought became.

Why was this such a big deal? To her, and to the others, and in such different ways. What, exactly, was she afraid of doing, or saying, or being?

“Holtzmann?”

“You’re on the air,” she replied, pressing two fingers to a pretend headset.

“Am I…” she started, fingers twisting the tuner dial back and forth, looking for sound among the fuzziness. “Am I really that bad at flirting?” She tried to sound casual, like she didn’t really care what the answer was, but she knew that if she could feel the tension in her jaw and the tightness in her shoulders, Holtzmann would be able to see it. But she wanted honesty. She knew she could count on her for that.

Holtzmann slouched in the passenger seat, boots propped up on the dashboard, arm hanging out the open window. “If the way you talk to Big Kev is any indication, then…yeah, kinda.”

Erin tried to hide her disappointment.

“Not so good at picking up on it, either,” Jillian murmured, feigning a look out the window for their friends, with no sign of them.

“Hm?”

“I _said_ ,” she pressed on, “it’s a self-esteem thing. You gotta have confidence in yourself, and then people will wanna buy what you’re sellin’.”

What did Erin have to sell?

What did Holtzmann have? And why was it apparently so in-demand?

“That’s easy for you to say, Holtzmann,” Erin said. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone more comfortable in their own skin.” Holtz shrugged in a way that was almost modest. Erin shifted in her seat so she was half-facing her. “No, really. How are you so confident?”

Holtzmann opened her mouth to reply, a quip already unlacing itself on her tongue, but something genuine in Erin’s eyes stopped her, made her reconsider her words.

“I guess I just…know who I am.”

Maybe that was just it.

Erin had spent so many years of her career and life trying to impress the right people and do what they wanted her to do, study what they wanted her to study. And the _men_ that she had dated, even just to get ahead, were all so _blah._ They were like the colour beige in human form wrapped in lab coats. Sure, they had the connections to the institutions and the names, but they made science seem like a goddamned aristocracy. A secret upper class of academics with their pipes and their brandy and their positively ancient ideals. She hadn’t gotten to be who she really was, not like Holtzmann did. Well, not until recently. And when she had been given the chance after so many years, she almost didn’t take it.

Once upon a time, Erin would have said without faltering that she was attracted to the exciting, to the unknown and unfamiliar. That was the reason for her interest in ghosts, and the very foundation of her friendship with Abby. Sure, she wasn’t the most exciting person, but the thrill of the foreign was the thrill she most often sought. But even now, she still felt like she had that elitist stench on her everywhere she went. She had become unfamiliar in herself, and that made her uncomfortable.

Coming out of that kind of shell after so long, and making the decision to no longer care what people thought about her…well, it had been a start. But it still didn’t make her any better at flirting, any more confident. Maybe she should have come to terms with that by now. Maybe that was just _who she was._

“I know who I am,” she replied in a small voice, staring at the tiny Jeep logo in the centre of the steering wheel.

“Do you?”

It was a surprisingly deep question coming from Holtz, and one she would rather not dwell on further. The changes in her life and in herself, the total destruction of her career and banishment from the scientific social circles she had once called home; the turmoil and trauma and emotion that the last few months had shown her, and the joy of acceptance…well, those things were the reasons that they were sitting in this rental car on the side of a road. They were the things that made Erin want to get away from it all, just for a little bit.

But they were also self-contained. And the other three members of their team had all had their fair share of issues, and yet they managed to pull off the kind of animal magnetism that Erin was apparently so devoid of. So what was it?

“It’s just, I’ve never been a smooth talker, not like you or Patty,” she went on, feeling frustrated. “I’m perfectly eloquent on paper, but put me out of my comfort zone and I forget how to speak. _You_ …you always say the right thing. Even if it’s totally inappropriate.”

“You know it, sistah,” Holtz said with a wink.

“What do you _do_ , Holtz? To get numbers in your little black book? You must have a routine of some kind.”

The real questions were hidden within her words: The lifelong learner wanted to know if ‘game’ could be acquired or studied or learned. And, if so, how would one go about acquiring or studying or learning it?

How had Holtzmann become the expert that she claimed to be?

And what the _hell_ was it about her that made Erin believe those claims?

Holtzmann licked her lips in thought. “Honestly, whatever feels right in the moment. It’s like calibrating a weapon right before you shoot a ghost: you gotta tweak your process according to the circumstances—distance, speed, size of target. It’s all in the details, baby.”

Erin sighed and flopped back against the car seat. “I don't even have a process.”

Holtzmann huffed. “So what? You said yourself that men take an interest in you. Maybe you don’t need one.”

“But what if I wanted one, you know?” Erin turned her head to the side to look at her. “All my life I’ve never had to do any of the heavy lifting when it came to dating, and all my life it’s been…” She ran a hand through her hair, frustrated. “It’s been so _unsatisfying._ What if who I am wasn’t good enough anymore? What if I wanted to be the impulsive, attractive one for a change? The one with all the game? Be a new Erin?”

She sighed, shaking her head, meeting Holtz’s eyes. “What if I wanted to do something different...something I haven't done before...”

She trailed off, a stagnant silence hanging in the air. Her eyes were still on Holtz’s, who remained remarkably still as Erin’s gaze followed the spiral of a loose, golden curl that had come loose from its up-do. Holtzmann felt the other woman’s stare travel along one sharp cheekbone, and across her jaw, to eventually rest, she was sure, on her lips.

“Erin…” she said softly, not knowing what was to follow, a breath rattling through her. Time seemed to slow, and she saw, she _swore_ she saw Erin move. Barely an inch, just the tiniest bit, but she moved closer. Before…

Before the silence was broken. The back doors to the Jeep were yanked open and Patty and Abby climbed in. Erin jumped almost out of her seat and her hands reflexively found the 10-and-2 position on the wheel.

“They didn’t have much,” Abby said, “but they did have Pringles!” She jiggled the can in front of Holtzmann’s face, who smiled and reached in for a few of her favourite snack.

“That bathroom was really nasty,” Patty said.

“I may have caught several diseases,” Abby added.

Holtz cleared her throat loudly. “All the more reason I’m gonna kick your butts later.”

Erin frowned. The game. The game they were all set to play. The reason for the question that she had asked Holtzmann. The reason her knuckles were white as she gripped the wheel and a pink flush had rudely invaded her cheeks.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Holtzmann shoot her a sideways glance. When she turned her head to see clearer, her glance was met with a crooked smile. Just a little one, but it was there. With a certain degree of uncertainty, she smiled back, and Holtzmann winked. It was fine. They were fine.

“C’mon, Erin, let’s hit the road.” Abby poked her friend on the shoulder from the back seat.

“Right. Yeah.”

Erin pulled the car back onto the freeway, leaving the gas station and, she hoped, the fluttery feeling in her stomach behind.

…

“Holy crap,” Erin said under her breath as she stared up at their weekend destination.

“Holy crap!” Abby exclaimed, doing the same thing.

“Holtzy, has your family been loaded this whole time and you haven’t told us?” Patty asked.

It was a fair question. The house looked new, probably less than five years old, and it was _big._

“Nah,” Holtzmann answered, pulling her satchel out of the trunk and slinging it over her shoulder. “My brother Jason won the lottery.”

“The _real_ lottery?” asked Patty.

“Yeah, about four years ago. He found five bucks on the sidewalk. Bought a ticket and won five million.” She was so casual about the whole thing, as if it happened all the time. Well, it did happen all the time, Erin thought, but not to anyone she knew. “He paid off our parents’ mortgage and all of our college loans, kept fifty grand in an investment fund for rainy days, and bought this place with the rest. When he’s not using it he rents it out.”

“Wow,” said Abby.

“Save your wows for when you see the inside.”

The inside definitely justified plenty of wows. It had everything—five bedrooms, five bathrooms, marble countertops and a big balcony on the second floor, from which you could see the ocean.

Three of the bedrooms were on the bottom floor and two were on top. Holtzmann called the master upstairs, and since it was her brother’s place, nobody argued with her. Patty and Abby assigned themselves to the bottom bedrooms, which all opened up onto the outdoor patio. Beyond that was a lap pool and spa, and a beautifully manicured lawn and garden with brightly coloured summer flowers. Erin went to do the same, placing her suitcase down on the bed of the third downstairs bedroom, when she realised that this was _not_ the firehouse, and Holtzmann would not dominate the top floor of every building they inhabited. Besides, she was missing out on an ocean view, and that was just silly. She took herself up the narrow staircase to the second upstairs bedroom.

It was minimally furnished: a double bed in the centre with plain white sheets. A little table with a lamp. A set of drawers. The entire north-facing wall was made up of windows, draped with white linen curtains. Erin drew them back and found herself staring at the sea. The beach was dotted with people, the sand strewn with colourful towels and umbrellas. Little white caps appeared on each wave as it approached the shore, and further out the water was shades of turquoise and teal and deep, deep blue.

“Pretty good view, huh?” said a voice behind her. Erin jumped, and realised she’d been so lost in thought that she hadn’t even heard Holtzmann come in. She was by the bed now, hands stuffed in her pockets and head tilted to the side, leering at either her or the window, though Erin wasn’t sure which.

“Yeah,” she replied, looking back out at it. But she could see Jillian’s reflection in the glass and she turned back around, shutting the curtains. She felt suddenly tense, like she had to fill the silence. “Listen, I just wanna say—”

“Patty and I are going to the store, you want anything?” she cut her off with a jerked thumb over her shoulder.

“Um, no, thank you,” Erin stammered.

Holtzmann gave her a thumbs up and turned on her heel to leave. Just a moment later, she peered back through the doorway. “You wanted to say something?”

Damn right she wanted to say something. To acknowledge and apologise for whatever it was that had gone on back at that gas station. Ever since, she’d been unable to shake a weird feeling every time she looked at the other woman, but it didn’t seem to be affecting Holtz at all. So she kept her mouth shut.

She was New Erin. She had impulse and _life_ and, most of all, she had game.

“Onion dip,” Erin said assertively, hands on hips for added emphasis.

“Gotcha.” Holtzmann gave her a salute in confirmation and was gone in a second

…

Erin had Britney Spears blasting so loudly in her bathroom that it took Abby three tries knocking at the door for her to finally answer. Fifteen years ago, Britney would have been just the thing to get Erin really jazzed for a night out. And it seemed to be having a similar effect tonight—even just wrapped in her towel and with her makeup half-done, she was actually feeling pretty good. Like maybe New Erin was a fun person; someone she would like to spend the night with. New Erin wasn’t worried about the knots she had only just managed to unravel from her intestines. New Erin only thought about good things, like cocktails and dancing, and she only did cool things, like flirt with traffic cops and exude a generally irresistible allure.

She was trying out a couple of alluring facial expressions in the mirror – pursed lips and quirked brows and such – when she finally heard Abby’s knocking. She let it get to the end of the chorus before she hit pause and opened the door to a dressed-and-ready Abby. Erin was almost taken aback. She hadn’t seen Abby wear much other than her jumpsuit or a baggy jacket and jeans for a long time. The flowy skirt and the cropped leather jacket and the heels were a welcome change. She’d let her hair out of its usual messy bun so it fell around her shoulders, favoured contacts over her glasses and had generously applied red lipstick to her lips.

“You clean up nice!” Erin exclaimed.

“Thank you,” Abby replied with a smile. “Wish I could say the same.” She eyed her friend’s towel ensemble – one covering her body and the other wrapped around her head. “Is that what the kids are wearing these days?”

“Shut up, I’ll be ready in a minute.” She turned back to the mirror and started applying mascara to her right eye, and then her left.

“I just came up here to tell you that Patty and I just might finish that pitcher of margaritas if you don’t come down soon,” she warned.

Erin blinked. “You already—”

“It was a small jug!” Abby shouted, turning to go, but adding, “You know, they should really call it Mexican Courage instead.”

Erin smiled and shook her head at her own reflection. A glossy pink lip and a touch of bronzer were enough to complete the look, she decided. She freed her freshly-washed hair from the embrace of the towel and cast it aside, reaching for the hairdryer.

  _Hair up,_ she decided, when it was finally dry. _Something different._ She raked her fingers through her locks, guiding them into a semi-messy high pony, with loose strands framing her face on either side.

Lastly, she reached for her dress, which she had cleverly hung in the bathroom before she showered in order to let the steam get out the creases. It was simple—black, no sleeves, with a square neckline just low enough to show a hint of cleavage, but only a hint; fitted through the torso and ending mid-thigh. Truthfully, _most_ dresses ended mid-thigh on her, because she was taller than average, but this was probably the shortest that she owned, and it showed off her legs in a way that made her feel great. Like she was making up for all the years of tweed and pencil skirts.

She finished the look off with silver hoop earrings and black heels. One last look in the mirror told her she was ready. Erin Gilbert could have fun. She could let loose. And she could be confident.

She’d always been confident with her mind—that had been the money-maker all these years, anyway. And she was grateful for that. But her appearance was another matter. Years of bullying, whether it be for her intelligence or her beloved “Ghost Girl” moniker, had really shot her down, and it had never quite gone away.

Her mom had said she was pretty – _but so does everybody’s mom,_ she had thought – and men would occasionally pay her attention, though it was usually unwarranted. She had come to like her big, bright eyes, her straight, white teeth, and her long limbs. But honestly—and maybe this was the root of her flirting woes--she had never really considered herself to be beautiful.

_But Holtzmann does._

Erin felt the knots in her innards coil up again as she remembered it.

_“That’s because you’re beautiful.”_

Not just the words, but the way it had been said. Nonchalant, casual, like it was not in any way a big deal.  

A given fact, one that had not even been the main feature of its own sentence. Which, if anything, made it all the more sincere. Holtzmann was almost never sincere.

Holtzmann thought she was beautiful.

Jillian Holtzmann, a self-declared expert on women, thought _she,_ Dr. Erin Gilbert, the tweed-wearing, nerdy particle physicist who was most of the time covered in ectoplasm, was beautiful.

New Erin took one last look in the mirror before heading down the stairs. _Who’s got game now?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your lovely comments and your kudos! They really motivated me to finish this last chapter quickly. I was so pleased with the response to this story and am having so much fun writing it. I'm thinking probably 2-3 more chapters, but we will have to see! I'll be on vacation with my family this week so the update may take a little bit longer, but I will do my best to not keep you all waiting.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took a tad longer than I was hoping, but I managed to squeeze in writing and editing this while on holiday, in between the swimming, the hiking, and the sightseeing. Thank you all again for your kudos and your comments, I have loved reading your reactions!

The last dregs of the margarita mix and the remaining, half-melted chunks of ice landed with a slosh into Erin's glass. She looked down doubtfully at the limey liquid, thinking that it was the bringer of giggles and flushed cheeks, as well as of headaches and perhaps the odd regret or two.

Still, she swallowed her fear along with the whole glass, feeling the liquid settle in her stomach and a sudden warmth in her blood.

Abby and Patty clapped and whooped at Erin's newfound badassery, the noise they made echoing through the long room that constituted the open-plan kitchen-slash-livingroom. It was a long room with hardwood floors. On the far end, past the leather sofas and the rather epic flatscreen, was the staircase, on either side of which were doors leading to the downstairs bedrooms.

Patty held up her phone to immortalise the moment on film. Erin smiled nervously, painfully aware that she was on camera, and that bad things tended to happen when she was on camera. Like getting fired, or assaulting a journalist.

"That's what I'm talkin' about, Erin!" she cheered.

Erin let out a little laugh. She tended, generally, to abstain from alcohol. Enough of it would make her chatty and bubbly and a little bit reckless, and...well, all the things she'd tried really hard not to be for the last chunk of her life. The kind of things that made others look upon her from a great height, along decidedly upturned noses. It had only taken one of Columbia's faculty Christmas parties to figure that out, and many years to make up for it.

But all that and more had flown out the window when she'd been ushered out with a box of office supplies for everyone to see, so she figured, what more was there to lose?

On the kitchen counter, behind Abby and Patty, she spotted an unopened bottle. Wary that she was still being recorded, and trying very hard not to care, she said, "Why don't we crack this bad boy open?"

"Oh, I got it," Patty said, confidently. She handed her phone to Abby, hoping that her own moment of pride would also be captured by the camera.

Despite her height, and her strong build, Patty was elegantly styled for the evening. The tight, black jeans had been paired with a thin-strapped, flowy cami in a bright purple colour that only Patty could convincingly wear. She had hoops on, too, but unlike Erin's, hers were big, and a shiny gold instead of her own sleek silver. She had bangles jingling at her wrists, and something glossy on her lips, and she looked almost graceful, until she Hulked out and popped the cork of the wine bottle like it was nothing.

Patty sniffed and wiped her knuckles under her nose in a way that exuded cockiness. "That's how it's done."   
Abby laughed heartily, but Erin was just plain impressed. "Wow, Patty, you are...really strong!"

"Pilates," Patty said, by way of explanation.

"I can't believe Holtzmann missed that!" Abby exclaimed. She put the phone away, feeling that her cinematic masterpiece was complete. "Was she nearly ready when you came down?"

Erin thought about it. "Her door was closed."

"Holtzmann, we drank all the margaritas!" Abby shouted, loud enough for her to be heard upstairs. "You better get down here before we drink all the wine too!"

"I mean, it's Holtzmann. How much longer can she take?" Erin went on, swishing the wine around in her glass. "Most mornings I think she's just rolled out of bed and come to work." Erin waved her hands about her own head, indicating she was referring to Holtzmann's wild hairstyle. When the others laughed at her joke, she took a satisfied swig of her wine.

"I'll have you know that that look takes a blow dryer, gel and about a dozen bobby pins to get right," came a voice from behind her. Holtzmann's voice.

Glass still in hand, and wine still in mouth, Erin peered over her shoulder to look at her, with the intent to first swallow, and second, ask her just why it had taken so long for her to join them.

But, when she set her gaze on the blonde, her jaw was suddenly occupied with falling to the floor. As was her glass of wine.   
The deep red liquid puddled at Erin's feet, the glass rolling around helplessly, though still, thankfully, intact. Out of the corner of her eye and all the way across the room, she saw Holtzmann draw back in surprise, but she made no move toward the mess.

Erin blinked rapidly, trying to work out what had just happened. She brought her hands to her mouth in surprise and stared at the floor. Absurdly, she let out a little laugh. "Oh, God, I'm so sorry!" she exclaimed.

Patty was there with a wet cloth in a second, always the practical one. "All good, girl," she said, assuringly. "Once, trying to flag down a waiter at a restaurant, I took down three martinis at once."

"Glad to see you finally made it down here, Holtz," Abby said, joining Patty on the floor, armed with cleaning product.

While she and Abby made quick work of the remaining spillage, Holtzmann crossed the rest of the distance between she and Erin. As she grew closer, Erin could make out more of her details that had made her put on such an embarrassing display: the ankle boots with the pointed toe and the small, square-cut heel; the fitted black pants that accentuated the hips and secured at the waist; the tucked white shirt with the top three buttons undone, revealing a hint of collarbone; and the blazer, unbuttoned and with the sleeves pushed up to the elbows.

She stopped about a foot away and crouched down to retrieve the fallen glass. Pinching the stem between thumb and forefinger, she looked up at Erin, all dark lashes and velvety lips, and her golden curls for once loose and flowing, surrounding her like a halo. They bounced ever so slightly as she stood and handed the glass back to Erin, who took it, with as much composure as she could muster.

Holtz held her gaze for a second. There was something intense in it--something that made Erin want to keep searching her eyes to see what she might find. She looked so...so many things. Feminine. Soft. But there was still something undeniably Holtzmann about the whole thing.

"Too much?" she quipped. "Is it the hair?" She tilted her head playfully to the side and a few locks of the hair in question tumbled over her shoulder.

"Holtzmann, you look..." Erin started, and then wished she hadn't.

She waved it off. "Oh, this old thing?" The nonchalance in her words was countered by the toothy grin that broke out on her face. She was proud of herself for looking so sharp that Erin's hands had forgotten how to be hands.

"Holtzmann, come have a drink!" Abby called merrily from behind the counter, where she was already pouring wine into three glasses. To signal that their party was just getting started, Patty switched on the radio and party anthems began to blast from the speakers.

The fourth glass was the one that Erin was clutching for dear life. Holtzmann reached for it, hovering her left hand only an inch from Erin's. "Freshen your beverage?"

It wasn't much of a line, but it did get Erin to hand over her glass with only a little hesitation. Holtz took a step towards the kitchen, her shoulder brushing Erin's.

"Not looking so bad yourself, Gilbert," she said in a low voice, almost right in her ear.

Erin bit her lip, suddenly self-conscious. She ran her hands over her dress, smoothing out the fabric and observing (or admiring) the way it hugged her curves. Still, the hem was shorter than she was used to; when she let her arms hang loose by her sides, her fingertips grazed the bare skin of her thigh, not dress. It was certainly a statement.

She brought her palms up to the sides of her face, feeling the hotness beneath her skin. The wine/maragirta buzz was slowly hitting her, making her blood run red hot and flushing her already-flushed cheeks. Was that the alcohol? Or nerves? Or something else?

Her thoughts were beginning to avalanche inside her head when a hand to her shoulder brought her back to reality. Abby's.

"You okay?" she asked, skipping any pretense.

"Yeah," Erin replied automatically. "I think I just need a little air."

"You want me to go with you? Y'know, 'case you up-chuck over the edge of the balcony?"

Erin shook her head, the ghost of a smile on her lips. "I'm fine. Five minutes."

"Suit yourself," Abby said, but she followed it with a familiar warm Abby smile.

...

The ocean air was cool on her face and chest, and she welcomed it, inhaling a deep, salty breath. While her fingers curled into a vice-like grip on the railing, she let her head fall back and her eyes close. She let the wind tousle her hair and gather her thoughts like autumn leaves.

She'd been fine. She'd danced to Britney and talked herself into thinking tonight was a good idea. And she'd done what she thought had been a pretty good job. She'd gotten into the dress and downed a few drinks. Well, she'd downed one, and dropped the other. She'd put nearly enough liquid courage into her system to start maybe thinking about making a few moves. Accumulating a few points to her name.

And just when she would start to feel ready, Holtzmann would walk in. And she would shatter Erin's every expectation, every precedent, every assumed truth. Every single time.

Sometimes, it would be small, like the socially appropriate ways to greet a stranger, or the physical and scientific limits of ghost-related weaponry. Other times, it was bigger -- the things she thought she knew about herself; the reasons for the butterflies that had taken up residence in her stomach since the gas station.

Holtzmann had, somehow, become entangled in this strange, internal battle she was having with herself. She was attracted to the idea of being able to be like her, to dance her way through the world without ever knowing or caring what other people thought. But she was also completely flustered when it came to the real thing.

Holtz's typical display was equal parts charming and strange. She had this way of making others feel important, capable. Her fearlessness made Erin test her boundaries, like dancing at work, or slaying a giant, inflatable ghost balloon with nothing but a Swiss Army knife. She brought out something in people, in her, that she could never understand. The old her. The Erin that believed things with her heart, and not just her mind.

Erin opened her eyes and looked out over the violet sky. The sun had just dipped below the horizon, and the stars were beginning to come out for the night.

Perhaps Holtzmann wasn't her mystery to solve. She was more than swagger and flair, she was her friend with a big brain and a bigger heart, and a weird, twisted sense of humour. She should focus on herself and the mystery therein. It was more than enough to occupy her mind. Especially tonight. Tonight was a confidence test. A no-regrets, no-inhibitions night. She was here, and she was in her little black dress, and she would be her badass, clever, ghost-slaying self. And if that didn't work, well, since Kevin was out of the competition, there was still fourth place.

Maybe Holtzmann had her own boundaries to test. Maybe Erin had polished off that margarita too quickly. Or she had just been caught off guard. That was fair, to be caught off guard. She'd never ever seen Holtzmann looking like...

"You're missin' the party. View'll still be there tomorrow." The sound of a voice broke the silence.

Erin turned around.

_Looking like that._

"You've got to stop doing that."

"Sorry." Holtzmann had her hands stuffed in her pockets, and she stood just inside the threshold of the bedroom. "Can I come out?"

She frowned, thinking it strange that she would ask permission when the house was more hers than any of theirs. Still, she gave a nod and the blonde overstepped the line. Erin clasped her hands together and leaned her forearms on the railing, staring out into the falling darkness. Holtzmann moved to stand beside her, and for a moment, she was silent. They were silent. The world was silent -- save for the distant sound of Patty and Abby's maniacal, tipsy laughter.

It was nice, the silence, though it rang so incredibly loud.

Holtz smacked her lips together deliberately and drummed her fingers on the railing. "So," she began, "I'm just spitballin' here, but you wouldn't happen to be...nervous? Perchance?"

"You're very observant," Erin replied drily.

Holtzmann shrugged.

"It's just..." Erin continued, unprompted. "Every time I convince myself I can take part in this, I start to doubt myself. Old habits are hard to break."

"Listen, I'm not so good with the motivational speeches, 'kay?" Holtz replied. "But c'mon. So you're a little clumsy and you dropped a wine glass. So you like to do jigsaws on Friday nights and re-read Little Women for the hundredth time. So you spend more time covered in ghost goo than not."

"You really aren't good at the speeches," Erin murmured, still looking out over the water. Though it was, she thought, fairly detailed. Jillian continued, unperturbed.

"But so what! You're Erin freakin' Gilbert!" She gave Erin a friendly punch to the arm for emphasis. A smile slowly broke out across Erin's face, and it made Holtzmann's heart glow to see it. She thought she could keep talking forever if it might make her smile like that.

"You've got a PhD, for cryin' out loud. You kill ghosts for a living. You saved the world. You sacrificed yourself for your best friend and you both lived to tell the tale."

"Yeah," she said softly. "Yeah, I did."

"Come on, stand up straight," Holtz went on, reaching for Erin's shoulders and straightening her stance till they both stood square. Erin looked alarmed. "You wanna know my approach? Three easy steps."

"Really?" Erin asked, suddenly intrigued.

"Sure," Holtzmann replied, wishing she sounded surer, knowing this may or may not be a bad idea. "Watch. I'll be you and you be...I don't know, some guy." She waved off this last part, not wanting to dwell too long on the thought of Erin and Some Guy.

"Some guy," Erin echoed, standing straight and stiff and deliberately lowering her voice. "What do I do now?" Holtzmann blinked. She was committing to the bit, that was for certain.

"Okay, forget about the guy. Just be you."

"If I'm me, then who are you?"

"I'll be me, you be you. Do you want to be bestowed with wisdom or don't 'cha?"

She bit her lip, and then nodded.

"Okay. Look, this is just what I'd use to seal the deal quickly. Normally, I like to take things a bit slower, but considering the circumstances, I'd say this is your best bet. My method is designed with an audience focus, not a product focus. And that's the reason it works. See, people spend so much time trying to feel good about themselves that they forget that the other person needs it just as much as they do."

Erin took this in silently.

"The key is to make the other person to feel important, wanted. Sexy. They'll like you because you make them feel good about themselves. But you can't be too obvious about it, or you'll come across as fake, and nobody likes that."

"Right."

"Step one: Give them a compliment."

"A compliment? This is your famous method?" Erin looked doubtful. Like the flick of a switch, Holtzmann got into character.

She tilted her head to the side and let her body fall into its typical crooked posture. A wickedly flirtatious smile played on her lips.

"Hey. That dress is..." she let her eyes zig-zag strategically up Erin's body, "...all kinds of amazing." Her gaze landed last on the other girl's eyes, who stared back for a second before shying away. Holtzmann noticed the tinge of pink in her cheeks, and the way her larynx bobbed as she swallowed, trying to find a reply.

She went with, "Thanks," in the end. A sheepishly quiet response, but a response nonetheless.

God, Holtzmann thought, she was radiant. She hoped Erin didn't think otherwise of herself.

Holtzmann straightened, pulling herself out of the moment as best she could, which wasn't much at all.   
"Step two: maintain eye contact. Keep them talking, talking about whatever, and look at them like they're the most fascinating thing you've ever seen."

And so she did. She studied Erin's eyes, the colour, the shape, the way her dark lashes curved upwards. The width of her pupils.

In the periphery, she could see the rise and fall of Erin's chest, and she was close enough to feel her breath on her skin.   
Erin could feel it -- the blood rush, the thump of her pulse, the twisting feeling in her gut. This method of Holtz's, like most everything she did, was scientific. It was chemical. But a one night stand, that was pretty chemical too.

"What's...what's step three?"

Holtzmann took a breath, and then another. "Touch," she said softly. "Something small, but certain. After that..." Slowly, she walked two fingers along Erin's forearm. Before she reached her elbow, she started tracing shapes on her skin, up and down, side to side. "...well, it's anybody's guess what happens after that."

Goose flesh erupted under her touch. Holtzmann couldn't help but smile, a little satisfied. "See? Simple, yet effective."

"Yeah," Erin said, eyes fixated on Holtz's moving fingers.

And it was. Simply, the effect was that Holtzmann wanted to touch Erin all over, for hours. She wanted to watch her eyes darken with desire. She wanted to tell her again and again how stunning she was, how frustrating, how all-consuming.   
As quickly as the moment had begun, it ended. Holtzmann ended it. She gave Erin a squeeze on the arm and stood up straight again, leaving a few more inches' distance between them.

"You got this, Gilbert," she said. "Besides, even if the method was to fail -- and it rarely does -- you've got..." She made an up-and-down motion with her arm, regarding her in her dress and her heels and her glory. "...all this going on."

"All of...what, a ponytail and a tight dress, and a thinly-veiled attempt at confidence?"

"Sounds good to me," said Holtzmann, quirking a brow.

Erin laughed. Holtz was, at the end of the day, right. People, herself included, were held back by worries of their own insecurities, rendered far too busy to notice anybody else's. And that knowledge, that fact, could be her safety net.

Holtzmann's advice was to make others feel good, like they were the kind of person that could captivate, fascinate, test the boundaries. That was exactly how Holtz had always made her feel, and with that in mind, she suddenly felt she understood the mysterious engineer a fraction better.

"I guess you can never really tell what's going on inside another person's head," Erin said after a moment, leaning back on the railing and searching for a horizon she couldn't see in the dark. Searching for a line to separate two independent entities, and failing.

Holtzmann watched her, watching the sea. "I guess not." And oh, what she would give to know.

There was a stretch of silence between them, long and lingering. Both peaceful and tense all at once.

Below them, in the garden, they heard a door open and close, saw a patch of light fold out and back in across the dark lawn, and after a moment, saw Patty appear and look up at them.

"Would you two hurry up and get down here? The Uber's comin' in eight minutes and we're doin' shots with the leftover tequila!" she called, hands cupped around her mouth to amplify the sound.

"We'll be down in a sec!" Erin called back. Satisfied, Patty returned indoors, singing along to a Justin Timberlake song as she walked.

"I'm glad the competition isn't about who can hold the most alcohol," Holtzmann said. "'Cause I'd be in the emergency room by the end of the night."

"God, I know," Erin replied with a smile. "Still, I'm sure we could fit one more in. You know, for courage."

"We should prob'ly get back down there."

Holtz turned on her heel and headed for the door. Erin hung back, watching her go.

"Holtzmann!" she called, before the blonde could get too far ahead. She stopped in the doorway, whipping around so that her hair bounced delightfully about her shoulders. Erin bit her lip, holding in a smile. "I really like your suit."

Holtz grinned one of her lopsided grins and sauntered back over to Erin, throwing an arm around her shoulders. As they headed inside and back downt the stairs to rejoin the party, she said, "Kid, I think you're gonna be just fine."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This got a little more emotional than I thought it would. Oh well!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My goodness, this is getting to be a fair bit longer than I intended! But luckily I am very much enjoying writing it, and I hope you're enjoying reading it! Thank you again for all your beautiful comments and kudos, as always!

“I haven’t lined up for a bar since I was seventeen,” Patty said as the four of them clambered out of their cab and onto the street. The night was a warm one, with a slight breeze rustling leaves and tossing hair about. The road, a long, straight block bathed in yellowy lamplight, was littered with partygoers hopping from bar to bar, staggering towards the next round, the next good song. They made Erin, who was a little giggly after the last of the tequila, look stone cold sober.

“I’d say you’re about to break that streak,” Holtzmann replied, examining the people spilling out of the building and onto the sidewalk.

“What were you doing going to bars when you were seventeen?” Erin asked, bewildered at both the remark and the sight before her. Even the line seemed like a pretty raucous affair, with patrons of all sorts patiently (or impatiently) waiting for their turn to bust a couple of moves and slam a few drinks. They were varying amounts of drunk, ranging from not-at-all to getting-turned-away-at-the-door. She bit the inside of her cheek to stifle laughter as a slovenly girl nearby took a tumble in her too-big heels, bringing her friend down with her.

From this far back, she couldn’t see much of the inside, but she swore she spotted a touch of neon, and she could hear the music. It was the kind of music with words in it, thankfully. Maybe they’d even play a song she knew.

Two bouncers, who looked like every bouncer looked—tall and broad with a hard face and a short temper—manned the door, and the line ran along the side of the building and was starting to stretch around the corner.

“I was mature for my age, okay?” said Patty as they tacked themselves onto the end of the line. “Don’t tell me none of y’all never snuck in underage?”

Abby and Erin exchanged a glance, being all too familiarly reminded of their time as teenagers.

“No,” they replied in unison.

“Not once,” said Abby.

“Never,” Erin added.

While Patty had apparently been making her splash on the clubbing scene, all tall and dark and _mature,_ the two of them had still very much been in their gawky, awkward phases. Hell, Erin thought sometimes they still might be. At seventeen, there had been braces and goggle-like glasses and some really, really terrible hairstyles. A teenaged Abby and Erin had spent their formative Friday nights eating pizza and reading, writing, and talking about ghosts. Though, to be fair, they’d loved every minute.

Sure, it might have been nice to attend the occasional party or two – or to even have been invited to one. Approval had always been something that Erin had sought, especially at that age, and she had often worried about her utter lack of social status. But she oughtn’t worry, Abby would tell her, because when they were famous scientists living their dream and proving the existence of the paranormal together, it wouldn’t matter a lick what those other kids had thought of them way back when.

She’d never considered that Abby might have been right about that.

“Well, what did you do instead?” Patty asked.

They looked at each other again, and once more answered in unison: “Study.” All four of them laughed at that.

“What about you, Holtzmann?” Abby asked.

Holtz rocked back and forth on her heels, hands tucked in her pockets. “Once. Freshman year of college.”

“What happened?”

“Well, the first wrong decision of the night was eating two tacos from a questionable-looking street vendor on the way there,” she started, and the other three winced. “Couple that with too much cheap vodka and a lot of head-banging and pretty soon I was blowin’ chunks all over the dancefloor and Tammy McLaren’s favourite leather skirt.”

“Oh, yeah,” Abby said, “I remember that story. Poor Tammy McLaren.”

“Yeah, pretty much scarred me for life,” Holtz said, running a hand through her curls. “Especially considering Tammy McLaren was the subject of a rather enormous crush on my part. I didn’t go back near a club or a bar till I was of age.”

Erin tried to imagine it – Holtzmann, eighteen or nineteen, heartsick (or just regular-sick, apparently) over a girl, sulking in her dorm room. Maybe there would have been flannel pyjamas and rock music, and ice cream. Or maybe it just rolled off her, like everything seemed to. Other fish in the sea, and such. It was hard to imagine Jillian Holtzmann with her heart broken over anything. The most upset Erin ever saw her get was when she would trip and drop her food on the floor, or when one of her machines wasn’t functioning properly. But then again, there had to have been a time when she was not the smooth talker she was now, and when the next conquest might not have come as easily. Erin thought the idea to be…well, endearing. She wondered how much of _that_ Holtz might still be in there somewhere, and if she ever might get to see it. 

The line began to move. For about two seconds, they engaged in the careful shuffle that is required in lines when you don’t know when your progress will suddenly come to a screeching halt. Which it did, pretty quickly. However, they continued at this frantic stop-start pace long enough that they covered some significant ground in the minutes that followed, and whilst they waited, Erin surveyed the crowd around them to accurately gauge the feel of the place. What she found was that it wasn’t exactly easy to pin down. There were people around their age, dressed up and appropriately tipsy for what was probably a rare night out. There were also mid-twenties hipster-looking kids who, from the phrases they kept repeating aloud, really just “liked the vibe” here. And then there were those in-between, who Erin couldn’t classify in either of those two categories: the still-trendy but more sophisticated early 30s lot, who, like their younger counterparts, just wanted a night to have fun and get a little wild, but unlike their younger counterparts, were picky about where they did it. The disgruntled locals, who “shouldn’t have to wait in line” because they lived here. The businessmen on business trips. And the rest.

It was a mixed bag, a motley crew of sorts, but something like that seemed just right for the four of them, who were all about as different as the four points of a compass. But, also like the four points of a compass, they needed all four there in order to function properly.

Erin suddenly did not feel so out of place, despite the unfamiliar environment. As the darkened entrance got closer, and the music louder, she felt it promise adventure, rather than danger or dread.

When they were almost at the front of the line, Holtzmann spoke up: “Now, ladies, since this is a competition I ask you all to keep a firm and solid tally on your activity from here on out. Your strategy is whatever you want—what matters is the final number of points you acquire.” She directed this last part at Patty, who lifted her eyebrows in response.

“For safety,” Holtzmann continued, “I put a tracker app on all your phones, so if you’re in trouble, you’ll be able to find any of us.”

And there were the nerves, kicking in. This was an all-out battle based on an argument based on Patty flirting herself out of a parking ticket. Erin wiggled her fingers anxiously at her sides and she tried to remind herself of all the things she had been trying to force into her head all day: _New Erin. Confidence_. _Breathe, just breathe. Remember Holtzmann’s advice: Compliment, look, touch._ _Touch._

_Ignore the butterflies. In, out, in, out._

“IDs, please.” A gruff voice pulled Erin out of her own head. She was face-to-face with one of the bouncers, who held out a calloused hand with dirty fingernails and thick, stubby fingers.

“You have _got_ to be kidding,” Abby said, stony-faced.

“Look, I know I got a good skincare routine, but it ain’t _that_ good,” added Patty.

“It’s policy,” said the other bouncer, who matched Abby’s hard expression with one of his own, as was demanded by his profession. “If you ladies have a problem with it, you’re welcome to leave.”

“Guys, look. Just—” Erin pulled out her ID from her clutch and handed it to the bouncer before turning back to the others. “Here. See? Fine.”

The others all obliged, and after an uncomfortable minute, the bouncers stepped aside and let the four of them through.

Patty stopped for a moment, looking like she might say something to one of the men, but when Holtzmann passed her and announced that there would be “no points for bouncers”, she stomped after her instead.

“When did you make that rule, Holtzy?”

“Read the pamphlet!” Holtzmann replied with a grin, sauntering ahead.

There was a long, dark hallway with black floors and black walls upon immediate entrance. The only lights were the strips of neon that Erin had spotted earlier, which decorated the ceiling. The music was loud enough now that they had to speak up to be heard over it.

“Man, those guys really killed my buzz,” Abby said.

“Yeah, what was their deal?” Erin asked.

“Maybe they recognised us.”

“I thought that was why we drove for four hours to get here – to avoid that,” Patty interjected.

“Ah, who cares?” Holtzmann said. “We made it inside.” She arched a brow playfully. “Now the real fun can begin.”

The hallway they were in rounded a corner and they came to an archway, through which they could see what the rest of the night had in store. The place was almost retro in its furnishings, with the neon motif continuing in bright green and pink streaks across the ceiling and the walls. There was a long, crowded bar on the far wall, where four black-clad, tattooed bartenders frantically poured, shook and stirred. The dancefloor was to their right, generous in size but also relatively full. On a small stage, a DJ spun real records and stood over the dancing congregation like he was their king. In the corner to the left there were number of booths with brightly coloured vinyl seats, where patrons munched on the kind of greasy kitchen food that could only be found in places like this, and could only be truly appreciated by the intoxicated.

The air was hot and full of dancefloor fog, and Erin found that she liked it. 

“Come on, Abby,” she said, grabbing her friend by the arm. “Let’s go get your buzz back. First round on me?”

…

She wasn’t sure if it was the second round that did it, or the third, but Erin felt, as she swivelled absent-mindedly in little half-circles on her bar stool, pretty darn good. The taste of the cranberry juice chaser still lingered on her tongue, all fruity and sweet, and she felt warm all over.

Holtzmann leaned an elbow on the bar and rested her chin on her knuckles, and she smiled at the bartender with cropped pink hair and a full tattoo sleeve up her right arm. She was about to open her mouth when Patty smacked her on the arm.

“If I don’t get points for bouncers, you don’t get nothin’ for a bartender,” she said.

“I don’t believe that was in the pamphlet, Patricia,” Holtzmann replied. Patty gave her a death glare. Whether it was about her argument or the use of her whole first name, but Holtz decided surrender was the best option, and gave up on the pink-haired girl.

They sat awhile, talking and laughing and watching the bar fill up, wary of giving up their seats. The songs all melded into each other, seamless transitions that seemed to blur the passage of time. Erin was wondering how long they’d been there when she saw Patty glance over her shoulder at the man who’d taken the free seat beside her. She looked back at them with an impressed face.

“Do it,” Abby said.

“It’s your noble duty,” Holtzmann added.

Patty spun her barstool around so that her back was to them and quickly and easily struck up a conversation with the guy. Though he was sitting down, Erin could tell he was tall, taller than Patty. He was well-built. Good bone structure. Nice skin. Not bad for the first of the night. For the first minute or so, the other three tried to surreptitiously watch, while acting like they weren’t.

“That looks like it’s going well,” Abby remarked. “We should probably get started or we’ll never catch up.”

“You’re right,” said Holtz, spinning around to face the rest of the bar and cracking her knuckles like she was getting ready for a fight. “Whadda we got here?”

There was a series of head jerks and points, followed by a gesture either in the affirmative or negative. Occasionally, one would hold a hand out flat and tilt it side to side as if to say, “Eh.” It was mostly Abby who did that—she was notoriously fussy when it came to guys. In high school, when Erin had remarked so-and-so from such-and-such class was cute, she would usually say something like, “He uses too much gel in his hair,” or, “I heard he plays the harmonica in his spare time.” But maybe that had changed now, Erin thought, as she nodded at three of Holtzmann’s anonymous suggestions in a row.

“Go talk to one of them. That one.” Holtz pointed at a dark-haired guy on the edge of the dancefloor. He was alone, looking at his phone in a shy kind of way.

“Yeah. Yeah, I think I will,” Abby replied, standing and smoothing out her clothes and fussing with her hair. “What about you?”

“I, uh, think I’ll stay here a little while longer.” She leaned back against the bar and crossed one leg over the other. Abby gave her a pointed look, brows drawing together suspiciously.

“ _What?”_ Holtz asked defensively. “Look, I’m still scoping out the potentials, alright?”

Abby glanced over at Erin, and back at Holtzmann, studying the latter’s face. The blonde tried to match her hardened expression with one of her own, willing her to leave it alone. It must have worked, because Abby simply said, “Okay,” and turned and went.

Despite Abby and Patty’s jump start, Erin seemed in no hurry to begin any kind of chase. Then again, she hadn’t been in much of a hurry this whole trip.

“What about you, Gilbert?” Holtzmann prompted, nudging her with her elbow.

“Hm?” Erin had been tracing circles with her straw in the bottom of her empty glass. She looked up now though, meeting Holtzmann’s eyes with her own.

“Do you see anything you like?” she said, slowly. Deliberately.

The path Erin’s eyes followed was sluggish and slow, tumbling down Jillian’s mass of curls, and staggering along the curve of her neck to the hint of milky skin that was visible through her open shirt collar, and finally climbing back up to her eyes.

Holtzmann’s teeth sunk into her bottom lip. With great difficulty, she jutted her head in the direction of the dancefloor. “Out _there._ ”

“Oh.” Erin looked instead into her glass. “Maybe. I’m…I’m not sure.”

“Well…what is it you want?”

Erin thought about it. And as she thought, the average song that was playing morphed into a _really_ good one, and suddenly, she knew the answer.

“I wanna _dance,_ ” she said, setting her glass down on the bar where it was immediately cleared by one of the bartenders.

“I was kinda talkin’ about—”

“You asked me what I wanted. Dance with me.” She slid off her stool and held a hand out to her with Erin-level stubbornness. And Holtzmann would be damned if she didn’t say yes to that command.

 It was even hotter on the dancefloor than it was over by the bar. The humans-per-square-inch ratio was way higher here; Erin and Holtzmann each led their trek through the crowd with their shoulders leading, narrowly avoiding being swiped by wayward limbs on the way.

Erin stopped in a spot near the middle of the floor, a tiny opening in the sea of bodies that she deemed appropriate for getting one’s groove on.

Without the reservation, hesitation, or uncertainty that oftentimes held Erin back, she began to dance.

And for the first time since the Tammy McLaren incident, Jillian Holtzmann felt uneasy on a dance floor.

The dancing wasn’t _good_ by any standard – there were far too many pointed fingers, for one thing, and she was unsteady in her heels so she hardly moved her feet at all…but there was something kind of captivating about the whole thing. About Erin Gilbert, inhibition-free, eyes closed and ears open to the music, rhythm in her muscles and a smile on her face. It made Holtz’s heart do a little drunken flip inside her chest, but the rest of her body stayed pathetically still.

Perhaps feeling that she was being watched, Erin’s eyes flipped open and met Holtzmann’s. Her face was shrouded in the colourful lights that moved in circular motion above them.

“ _Holtzmann,_ why aren’t you dancing?”

She swallowed. “I, uh—”                                  

“Come on, you’re the best dancer I know!” She held up her right hand to solidify the honesty of her statement, swearing on an invisible Bible before in invisible court.

A toothy grin spread all the way across Holtzmann’s face. If Erin wanted dancing, she would get it. She pulled out some of her best stuff – bobbing her head back and forth like a chicken, doing The Robot, and throwing in a bit of fancy footwork for good measure. It was goofy and dumb (not to mention dated – _The Robot? Seriously, Jillian?_ ), but it made Erin smile that glorious smile, and it made her keep dancing with her.

Well, except to shrug off her blazer and toss it onto a nearby pile of jackets. As she did so, the song began to change, and she decided on a whim to totally go for it now. Hands running through her hair and hips gyrating, and every so often sneaking a look over at Erin, who seemed utterly lost in the moment and in the music. She dared to move closer, just a little, to where she was within arms’ reach. A dangerous place to be, but one she chose to inhabit anyway. And then, whether it was because of the tangle of bodies around them taking up space, or the alcoholic freedom, or something else entirely, Erin moved in too.

Holtzmann tried to focus on the dancing, to just keep her body moving in circles instead of her mind. But as she did, Erin would catch her eye, or their hands would brush up against each other, or she would get a whiff of Erin’s perfume or shampoo or whatever the hell it was that woman used to make herself smell so goddamned fruity.

The beat of the music was fast, but Holtzmann’s heart pounded faster. Her breaths came quick and shallow. She was not dedicating a single brain cell to the thought of the game they were here to play. How could she, when she was practically mesmerised by the sight before her. The strap of Erin’s dress that had slipped from its place, revealing a hint of bare skin and a freckle that Holtz hadn’t known to be there; the pinkish glow in her cheeks and the light sheen of sweat on her skin; the way her messy ponytail bounced and swished with every movement.

Behind them, two anonymous latecomers joined found their group, and their circle rapidly expanded to fit them in. In the moments following, the group managed to take a fair chunk of Erin’s dancefloor real estate, pushing her forward—right into Holtzmann’s arms.

“Whoa, hey, uh…” Holtzmann started, but didn’t finish. She was distracted by Erin’s fingers bracing her arms as she tried to steady herself. The fruity scent was really strong now.

“Sorry,” Erin replied, looking over her shoulder at the backs of the people who had shoved her. “That is so rude.”

“Don’t be.” It was only now that they stopped dancing that she realised how quick her breath was coming, and that Erin’s was, too. She could feel it tickling her skin, her face. She could feel the heat of Erin’s body pressed up right against hers.

For a fraction of a second, it was all she felt. That, and desire. She could definitely feel that.

Erin caught her eye, and she held it, and suddenly her words from that morning rang loud in Holtzmann’s mind: _“What if I wanted to do something different? Something I haven't done before...”_

 _I’m something different,_ Holtzmann thought, and immediately she pushed the rudely intrusive thought to the very back of her brain. In its place, another, equally intrusive thought emerged: was there something Erin was pushing to the very back of  _her_ brain? Was it that she could feel something between them? Was it that she was not as oblivious as Holtz had first believed?

Or was it confusion -- as to why her crazy engineer  _friend_ had been acting so weird all day?

“I’m gonna go to the bathroom,” Erin announced suddenly. She let go her grip on Holtzmann's arms, and the other woman did the same before taking a cautious step backward.

Holtzmann took a deep breath, the kind that puffed up her chest. "Roger that," she said, saluting her trademark two-finger salute. Maybe some questions were better left unanswered. Or, maybe some questions had just been given one. 

As she left, Erin could feel the back of her neck tingle with Holtzmann's gaze. 

As she left, she wondered just what it was that she was walking away from.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More sexual tension and ~draaaamaaahh~ coming next chapter.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to update sooner, so I'm sorry that I didn't. But this is a longer chapter than normal! Thanks again for all your lovely words, they make my day/week/month.

# chapter 5

Though just having promised barely thirty seconds ago to remain where she stood, Holtzmann quickly started shouldering her way through the crowd, searching for the edge of the dancefloor, perhaps a wall against which she could lean, and more than two inches’ distance between herself and the next-closest person. The heat was too intense, suddenly, the music too loud, the bodies too close.

On her way, she reached for her discarded blazer between the legs of a middle-aged, balding guy doing disco moves, thanking the powers that be that he simply looked at her in surprise, rather than like she was trying to make a pass at him. She held up her jacket and shrugged, as if to thank him for his time, and then carried on.

By the time she emerged into the purgatorial empty space between the dancefloor and the bar, she’d stepped on at least three feet, had taken an elbow to the ribs, and had made a dancing couple part like the Red Sea when they simply hadn’t moved out of her way.

But it had been well worthwhile. With a sigh of relief, she fell back against the rear wall. The brick was cool through the fabric of her shirt. She surveyed the room to see if she could spot her other two friends. Patty was still over by the bar with her guy from before, except now he had a buddy with him. And Abby…Abby and was at the tables with a new man. They were laughing. He was touching her hand.

Holtz smiled to herself, proud to have friends with such gusto. More than she did right now, at any rate.

Back there, on that dancefloor, under the lights and under the influence, there had been a _moment._ For the third time that _day,_ something had happened to make Holtz question whether or not this thing she had for Erin was wholly one-sided.

And then it would end, and she would be as doubtful and confused as she had been before, just slightly more aroused.

It was a problem she’d wrestled with her whole life. Jillian Holtzmann always wanted what she could not have: Her own personal particle accelerator. Lactose. A smaller version of the siren that went on top of the Ecto-1 for her to wear as a hat. And Erin.

It had started out as harmless flirting. Smiles, winks, perhaps a pet name, the occasional cheesy pick-up line. That kind of thing. The kind of treatment that most people got from her. Most _women,_ anyway. She liked the rise it got out of her. She liked making her laugh, liked making her blush. She _loved_ when Erin rose to the occasion and threw something back at her.

She filled her days endeavouring to make all these things happen, and began entertaining the idea of a parallel universe where they did things like let each other have bits of the meal they ordered on takeout night, shared a joint Netflix account, or stayed in bed till the afternoon.

It was at this point she realised she’d sprouted a _feeling_ , which was of course completely unacceptable in every possible way.

And she knew, _God,_ she knew it was a pointless chase, but then Erin would look at her a particular way and she would forget that she knew that.

Did Erin even realise the effect she had on her? Or, more pointedly, had she and the others been selling her utterly short on the whole ‘game’ debate? Erin made her pulse jump. Erin made her do The Robot. Erin made her give away her as-yet-unpatented but totally genius flirting tips. That didn’t sound very fourth-place of her.

When they’d embarked on this whole shenanigan, Holtzmann had not considered that this would present something of an obstacle to her victory. And yet, an hour in and she was without even a smidgen of a point.

Infatuated though she may be, she was still Jillian Holtzmann, and she did not like to lose.

Which is why, when she spotted the pink-haired bartender from earlier heading in her direction with a smile on her face and a pair of drinks in her hands, she smiled back.  

The woman was short in stature, probably even shorter than Holtzmann, definitely shorter while she had these heels on. But she was curvier, her standard bartender attire of a black T-shirt and black skinny jeans clinging delightfully to her in various places. Her hair was cropped short with the slightest curl to it, half tied up in a tiny bun that sat atop her head and half hanging loose around the length of her jaw. She had bangs that came about two-thirds of the way down her forehead, sitting blunt over dark, pronounced brows and bright green eyes. Her nose had a silver ring in it. On her feet she wore a pair of sneakers that had no doubt seen better days. Holtzmann thought that at one point they must have white, but they had been stained with dropped drinks in every colour of the rainbow. A sleeve of tattoos snaked up her right arm, which Holtzmann noticed was every bit as pleasingly toned as the left one. Pouring beers and lifting trays was apparently the secret to achieving muscle definition.

Holtz wondered if maybe the girl had any other tattoos.

“Hey,” the bartender greeted simply, when she was close enough. Her voice was hoarse-sounding from shouting over the music all night.

“Hi,” Holtzmann replied, becoming increasingly aware of her posture. It was tricky to not look like an asshole while leaning against this wall, but she knew if she stood up straight suddenly she would look an unflattering shade of eager.

“Listen, I don’t normally do this,” she started, and Holtz immediately questioned the truth of that statement in her mind, but let the other woman go on. “But I just finished my shift, and I was wondering if you wanted this.” She held out one of the glasses she was carrying, the beer sloshing around in the glass as she did. “On the house.”

“Thanks.” Holtz wrapped her fingers around the cold glass, wet with condensation. “You, uh, won’t get in trouble for that?” She raised the glass to her lips and quirked a brow.

“Nah. Well, maybe,” she said. She looked Holtzmann up and down. “Let’s hope you’re worth it.”

Holtzmann grinned into her glass.

…

The task of peeing whilst just the slightest bit intoxicated was more difficult than Erin remembered. It required concentration, flexibility and a few tricky manoeuvres to hike her dress up high enough for her to be able to sit down. In her head, the whole thing felt impressive while she was doing it, but in reality, it was just extremely ungraceful. Luckily for her, there were currently more cubicles than there were people lining up to use them, so she took her time.

The grey-walled cubicle was, for a few fleeting moments, something of an oasis. As she sat, Erin’s feet throbbed inside her heeled shoes. Her ears rang with a high but unidentifiable pitch. Her head was unmistakably cloudy, her vision a little unfocused. Her blood pumped hotly through her veins and she could hear her pulse going _thud, thud, thud._  

The butterflies that had seemed to be inhabiting her belly more and more of late had taken flight again. They seemed to really like it when Holtzmann was around.

She’d brought it on herself, really. Drunkenly dragging Holtzmann to the middle of a hot, crowded dancefloor – what _was_ that? She’d heard the expression that drunk words speak a sober mind, but what about drunk _actions_?

Not that anything had happened. Well, not really. Holtz’s suggestive dance moves? Nothing new there. A touch of lingering physical contact? She’d seen it before. A bit of harmless fun. Nothing to think about. Nothing to dwell on, or replay in one’s head over and over again.

Beneath the door of her stall, Erin could see more and more pairs of heeled shoes joining the bathroom queue. Sensing her time in the oasis was over, she groaned, stood, adjusted her dress, flushed, unlocked the door and walked out. She headed straight for a vacant sink, eager for the cool touch of the water on her skin.

She washed her hands first, and then dabbed drops of the cold water around her collarbone and on the apples of her cheeks. She was wary of ruining her makeup, but she was also so flushed she thought she might combust. Last, she pressed her damp palm flat to the part of her chest left exposed by the square neckline of her dress, letting out a sigh at the relief it brought.

All of a sudden she was very aware of her reflection, staring back at her in the slightly dirty bathroom mirror. Under the harsh fluorescent lights, every flaw was emphasised drastically, and her skin had a yellowy tone to it that it did not normally possess. Still, all that taken into account, she wasn’t looking too shabby. She gave a tug on her ponytail to tighten it, reapplied her lipstick and prodded at her skin before deciding it wasn’t going to get much better. Despite the music outside still being very audible in here, she hummed ‘Toxic’ under her breath.

She was a little dishevelled, and red in the face, but beyond the bathroom door was a dark room full of strangers. If she could survive all the faculty mixers she’d been to over the years, in very light rooms with people she had been introduced to but whose names she had probably forgotten (which was, in her opinion, _so_ much worse than strangers), she could survive this. Hell, she could _own_ this. She might’ve felt a _little_ on the mutton-dressed-as-lamb side earlier tonight. But out there, it was different. Out there, on the dancefloor, with Holtzmann, she’d felt free and fun and easy. Even sexy for a minute there. Erin didn’t feel sexy very often.

And that was the key to all of this, right? That was the key to getting strangers to find you attractive – it was to stop trying to make them notice.

The inside of her head was manic and the links between her thoughts were fraying with each passing minute. But through the mental fog and through the noise and the light she knew she wanted to get back out there and find Holtz and dance some more.

So what that she was a little behind in the game? She was having fun, which was more than she had expected when the day had begun. They still had hours before they would have to leave; plenty of time to acquire a few points later on.

She had said to Holtzmann that she would be back. She should go back. She didn’t want Holtzmann to worry.

But first, one more drink, she resolved.

…

A few painful minutes of pushing, shoving and pivoting later, Erin found herself handing over a twenty at the bar in exchange for a pair of icy cold screwdrivers before heading for the centre of the room, figuring it the best vantage point to locate her friend.

She chose those particular beverages because, as well as the fact that they could be described as nutritious _and_ delicious, she thought Holtzmann would appreciate a drink named after a piece of hardware.

Well, Holtzmann might have. She might have even made a pun or a quip or remarked that the orange juice tasted fresh. She might have done any of those things, had her lips not been spectacularly occupied latching onto those of the bartender with the pink hair.

Erin tried not to stare, she really did. It wasn’t like she’d never seen two people kissing before. But, God, it was _Holtzmann._ This was unchartered territory, and Erin left her drink virtually untouched, instead drinking in the sight before her.

They were by the back wall, on the edge of the dancefloor. Just close enough to the crowd to maintain discretion from most angles.

Most.

Holtzmann kissed women like she did most things – with an unquestionable air of confidence but very little grace. In the low light, and from the distance at which Erin stood, Holtz’s mouth looked soft and sure, but certainly not gentle. Their noses bumped together sometimes, but neither looked fazed, just changing angles and parting their lips every so often to deepen the kiss.

Once Erin got past even the idea of Holtzmann’s mouth, her focus shifted to her hands. They rested firmly on the girl’s ribcage, and she moved her thumbs in periodic circles, just barely brushing the underside of the bartender’s breasts. The other girl had her hands on Holtzmann’s neck, but when Holtzmann’s hands slid down her body to brush her ass, her own hands slid reflexively into Holtz’s rich, tangled, golden curls.

Their bodies moved together, swaying to a beat that was a little too erratic to belong to any song. The girl broke apart from her just a little and started peppering tiny kisses down the side of Holtzmann’s neck. The blonde’s head fell back in pleasure, and Erin unconsciously made a mental note to remember what that looked like. Her eyes fluttered shut and her lips parted just the slightest bit. Then, Holtz angled her head to the side, to give the bartender better access to that sweet spot at the juncture of her neck and shoulder. She was facing Erin, now. The girl nipped at Holtz’s milky skin with her teeth and the blonde’s eyes snapped open. For a moment she stared into the distance and the flashing lights and at nothing in particular. And then her eyes, all heavy-lidded and dark, found Erin’s across the bar. Saw her watching. Watched her back.

It lasted probably only a few seconds, but it felt like a million. With every beat of her heart, Erin could feel her pulse thumping in a new part of her body – her chest, her ears, her fingers. Her stomach flipped and her throat tightened. Holtzmann just held her eyes while the pink-haired girl lavished her milky skin. It was hypnotising. Eventually, though, the other girl’s lips sought hers out, and Holtzmann turned her attention back to the bartender. The moment had ended, and Erin was no longer included in this silent exchange.

Flustered and disoriented, it was all she could do to look away, but she thought it was important that she did, and quickly. Too quickly, in fact, because in the process of whipping around to find literally anything else to look at, she collided with the man who had been standing behind her, sending orangey vodka and ice cubes tumbling down the front of his clean white shirt.

“Oh, my God! I’m _so_ sorry,” Erin exclaimed, searching frantically for something to dab at the stain with but finding nothing.

“Hey, that’s okay,” the man replied. Upon hearing his voice, Erin looked away from the stain on his chest to find his face. He was tall, dark-haired and dark-eyed. Maybe couple of years older than she was but in incredibly good shape. Sharply dressed aside from the orange splodge on his shirtfront, and smelling like cleanliness with a hint of cologne. He was clean-shaven, which was a good thing, because any facial hair would have hidden the sharp jaw he had. The guy was textbook handsome, and Erin was textbook flustered.

“No, I mean, that’s gonna leave a stain!” she went on. “Say, do you want this?” She held out one of the two drinks – Holtzmann’s, seeing as she wouldn’t be needing it. “It’s the least I can do considering you’re already wearing it. I didn’t put anything in it, I swear.”

Erin smiled warily, certain that she sounded perfectly insane to this innocent man whom she had attacked with orange liquid.

But then he smiled back, and took the drink. He introduced himself but the word was lost in the air, drowned out by a cheer from the dancers as a particularly good song started to play. Erin said her own name anyway, though, and he repeated it once over before downing the rest of the drink. The ice cubes clattered around in the empty glass as he set it down nearby.

“Wanna dance, Erin?”

She did.

…

Abby carefully examined the phone number etched onto the napkin that had been slid across the table to her before its owner had dashed off to re-join his party. Her second tonight. She tucked it safely into her purse with the others, a souvenir of her sexual prowess, or just a funny memento for the morning.

It had been probably thirty seconds since the guy had left when another body slid into the booth beside her. She jumped, startled at the forward gesture, but looked up and realised it was only Holtzmann— though, it was a Holtzmann who looked somewhat more dishevelled than she had the last time she had seen her. The collar of her shirt stuck out awkwardly from under her jacket, her hair was a curly mess, and pink blotches covered her mouth, jaw and the side of her neck. She didn’t seem too bothered by her own unkemptness, though, flashing a wide grin at Abby.

“Well,” she said, “Was that a phone number napkin you just shoved in your purse or are you smuggling snacks? ‘Cause I gotta say, I’m supportive either way, but the phone number thing is exciting.”

“Currently sitting at _five_ points,” Abby replied proudly. “You get two for a phone number and one for a drink, right?”

“See, this is why I made the pamphlets!” Holtz smacked the table with her palm emphatically.

“Well, it looks like I’m not the only one getting a little action.”

Holtzmann leaned her forearms on their table and locked her fingers together. “Oh, you saw that, huh? Don’t you think it kinda looked like she’d shoved her head in a cotton candy machine?”

“No, no, I didn’t see, but you’ve got, uh…” Abby pointed to the marked skin on Holtzmann’s neck. When Holtz looked confused, Abby fished around in her purse for a compact and slid it across the table to her.

“Jesus, I’ve been _branded_ ,” she replied, looking at her reflection in the tiny mirror.

“Who was she?”

“One of the bartenders.”

“ _Holtzmann!_ ” Abby chided.

“Relax, she wasn’t on the clock! And _she_ made the first move, I’ll have you know.”

Abby just laughed. Holtzmann’s whole existence was the first move. Women would make googly eyes at her _all the time._ Waitresses, shop assistants, random people on the street. Strange and quirky though she was, there was a magnetism to her that somehow made her a little bit irresistible, and it was always entertaining to watch.

“Look, what matters is, I got a drink, a number and a solid lip-lock,” Holtzmann went on, holding up the remaining half-glass of beer, “so I’m sittin’ on a cool seven points.”

“I thought it was three for a kiss,” Abby protested.

The compact Abby had given her had powder in it, and she frantically dabbed some on the inflamed skin, even though it was a couple shades too dark. It didn’t do much, but in the low light it was enough. “I gave myself an extra point for the embarrassment I will have to suffer through from Patty because I’m covered in hickeys.”

“Okay, fair. But you’re maxed out on that girl now.”

Holtz shrugged and reached over and took a couple of the French fries that Abby and her most recent beau had had sent to their table (before he had left). “Hey, you haven’t seen Erin anywhere, have you? We were dancing, and she went to the bathroom, and then…” She trailed off, sinking her teeth into her bottom lip.

“Then?”

“She saw me with that girl. Kissing her. I don’t know, she looked kinda…freaked out.”

“Well, she can’t have been too scarred, because she’s been talking to Mr Tall, Dark and Handsome for…” She glanced at her watch. “Ten minutes! Go Erin!”

Holtz looked over by the bar, where the man in question was handing Erin a drink. Her lips were wrapped around the straw, but she kept her eyes glued on the guy as he spoke. A second later he said something apparently hilarious, because she laughed and reached out and touched his arm. Holtzmann couldn’t quite help but smile at that. Her method worked, apparently. More than that, though, Erin looked so confident. It was a nice colour on her.

“Yeah,” Holtz said under her breath. “Go Erin.” Her look lingered for another few seconds, wondering if maybe the other woman would look back at her, but she didn’t. Instead, she leaned and said something right into the man’s ear, and just like that, he planted one right on her lips.

Holtzmann had never kissed a guy, but she didn’t imagine it to be a barrel of fun. They were big and their faces were scratchy and they were rough. Erin, though, seemed to enjoy it just fine.

So did the guy, apparently, but that was no surprise. He was the one who got to kiss Erin. Holtzmann bet she would be soft, and that she would taste good because she was the kind of person who had a strict dental hygiene regiment.

“Look at that! Number Four’s going places, huh?” Abby said, elbowing Holtz.

“She sure is,” she replied, watching the man’s manly hands sliding over Erin’s body, and noting what she would do differently. Not that it mattered. Not that she would, ever.  

Abby watched Holtzmann watching Erin, and rolled her eyes. It had been going on far too long, this whole thing. Either Erin was the most oblivious person to ever have lived, or Holtzmann was _not_ as good at this as she said she was. Regardless, it was beginning to hurt, and Abby would not have her friends suffer at the hands of fate or each other.

“I think I’m gonna get some air,” the blonde announced suddenly, sliding out of the booth with her beer in hand and heading in the briskest possible gait to the bar’s back door. Abby was remiss to give up her booth, but she did it so she could follow Holtzmann out there, knowing she may need more than just air.

The back door opened up to a small outdoor area, fenced off from the street and bordered on its other sides by the exposed brick walls of the building. There were five or six wooden tables scattered throughout, though only two had any occupants. The rest were free, save for the empty glasses and bottles and cigarette butts covering their surfaces. There were lanterns strung between the wall and the fence, looking like big paper stars against the black of the night.

Holtzmann inhaled deeply, feeling the cool night air rush into her lungs. It was not a cold night, but it felt like it when compared with the sticky heat of the indoors. She sat atop one of the empty tables, crossing her legs beneath herself.

Abby was not far behind, and when she spotted Holtz on the table she sat up there beside her. They were silent for a little while. Sometimes, though it was not often, Holtzmann needed silence. Her head was a very loud place to live.

Then, Abby placed a hand on her knee. “You should tell her, Holtzmann. You should tell her how you feel.”

“Who, Cotton Candy? Not that interested. Couple of points and a bit of fun, but I’m good.”

“No,” said Abby calmly. “I don’t mean her. _Erin._ ”

Holtz scoffed, as if the truth were the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard. “Psh. Erin? I don’t…Erin isn’t…”

“What, isn’t your type?”

“Yeah! You know, beautiful, smart, a total badass… _so_ not my type.” She sipped her beer, possibly to stop herself from talking.

“Then how come you’re getting so worked up about her and that guy?”

“I’m not worked up!” Holtzmann said, too defensively. “Good for her. Points for everyone. That’s why we’re here, right?”

Abby frowned. “Is it?”

Holtz didn’t answer.

“She acts differently around you. Come on, did you see her when you walked in wearing that? She nearly passed out, for God’s sake.”

“It was the wine.”

“It was _you._ Look, I’m not saying she knows what she’s doing but…there’s something there, Holtzmann.”

“Abby, don’t.” Her voice was softer but her words more pronounced. A warning.

“Don’t what?” Abby asked, not heeding it.

“Don’t try to make me feel better by going along with this _stupid_ crush!” There was a silence, and Holtzmann realised what she’d said. “Sorry, God. You didn’t…you didn’t do anything wrong. I just—she’s clearly going with this smarmy dude. Why get my hopes up?”

“Well, look, it’s your choice. And you can keep hooking up with bartenders all you like, but one of these days you’re gonna wish for something a little more substantial. A little more predictable and steady. A little more Erin.”

Holtzmann sighed. Abby was right. Abby was usually right, but more so now than ever. And it sucked.

“But you don’t get to be mad at Erin. Maybe it looks like she’s choosing the guy ‘cause she doesn’t know you’re an option.”

“And if she did?” Holtzmann asked, looking Abby right in the eye.

Abby was quiet. Though she thought that the two women might be good together, she couldn’t make any promises. Not when Holtz’s heart was on the line like that.

“I don’t know, Holtzmann. But that’s…that’s no reason not to try. Don’t you ever wonder? What if—”

“Of course I wonder, Abby. I wonder every time she looks at me. I can’t help it. I feel like an idiot.” She looked into her glass. “Erin deserves better. She deserves someone who’s a grown up. Someone with a mortgage and an ironing board. And a penis.”

“Did you ever consider she’s had enough of that grown-up stuff?”

Holtz drained her glass, tipping her head back to catch the last of the amber liquid before wiping her mouth on the back of her hand.

She didn’t have an answer for that question.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My, my, these girls know how to mix their alcohol!  
> I should not be shocked at myself because I literally always do this, but there is still a little ways to go with this adventure. I am having such fun writing it. I hope you enjoyed!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the slight delay. Real life got in the way a touch. Thanks again and again for your comments and kudos, they make me smile!

_“Did you ever consider she’s had enough of that grown-up stuff?”_

The question was a fair one but also a deadly one. A knife against the stitches she’d sewn across her chest again and again. A can opener for the can full of worms she carried at all times.

One of the things that had held Holtzmann back from making a real, actual move on Erin was the footsteps she would be following in if she did. When Erin described her boyfriends, it was like hearing what the exact opposite of herself would be: an uptight, straight-laced man who probably came from money and was conventionally handsome but, generally, pretty boring. That was typically Erin’s _type_ (if you excluded Kevin, who was in his own way Holtzy’s opposite, practically twice the size with half the IQ). Erin gravitated, and always had gravitated, towards these kind of people. These kind of men.

But, then again, all those relationships had _failed_.

Erin had never mentioned being with or being attracted to another woman. At least, Holtzmann didn’t recall her ever mentioning it, and she was sure she would recall that if it had actually ever happened. However, she’d been at this a long time; she was pretty good at pickin’ ‘em. And besides, there was a first time for everything, right?  

She’d laid the flirt on thick from the second she met Erin; she’d felt it only her duty. The grainy, black-and-white picture that was on the dustjacket of her and Abby’s book had _not_ done her justice, and when she came to the lab that day she’d jumped right into action.

But maybe that had been her mistake. Maybe Erin just expected that of her. Maybe Erin thought that’s how she was with everybody, even though Patty and Abby were (mostly) spared from her advances. Maybe Erin thought that was just Who She Was. She wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or an insult.

Erin was one of the smartest people Holtzmann had ever met. That was a fact. But if that were a fact, how could Erin not know she was being flirted with? Or did she know, and not know what to do about it? Or did she know, and was too polite to tell Holtzmann to stop?

Did she want her to stop? Or did she want her to go further?

What would happen if she did?

There were too many questions. Too many variables for this to make any logical sense. That was the thing about people, though. They often didn’t make logical sense. And for years, Holtzmann had been on her own for that very reason. People weren’t machines. They didn’t do what she wanted them to do, or told them to do. Sometimes, they did the opposite. And not only did Holtz not know how to fix that, she didn’t know how to fix it in herself. People, real people, they didn’t like that.

When Holtz had said she felt like the Ghostbusters were her family, she’d meant it. If she told Erin all the thoughts and daydreams that she simply couldn’t stifle, she would risk losing a quarter of the family that she thought she’d never even be lucky enough to have. If she told Erin that she _liked_ her, that she thought she was beautiful all the time, even in her sweats – _especially_ in her sweats – or that she had a big fat crush on Erin’s big, juicy brain, or any of the romantic crap that had invaded her mindof late…

If she did any of that, things would never be the same again, not like they were now. What if Erin couldn’t trust her anymore? Or was scared to be alone with her? How were they supposed to be a team if she ruined it for all of them because her own selfish desires?

Or, did Abby’s encouragement mean that her desires weren’t selfish? At least, not wholly. Or moreover, did it mean that maybe Erin _wouldn’t_ do any of those things?

In addition to being clever, Erin was also all kinds of confusing. Anyone as cocky as Holtzmann would (and did) think that they could figure her out just by looking at her. She was wound up as tight as the tweed she wore. She was neat, and organised. Self-conscious. Guarded.

But she was also kind of a badass. When she let that guard down, she was _funny_ and witty and a little bit weird. _Wonderfully_ so. These past few months, she’d come out of her little shell enough to be wacky with the best of them.

These were things she adored about Erin. But they did not tell her what she might say if Holtzmann confessed said adoration. And that scared her.

But so did ghosts. So did rent. So did Republicans. Was she going to let fear get the better of her?

Well…maybe.

“Where is this all coming from, anyway?” Holtzmann asked Abby, after a _long_ pause. Her glass was empty now, and she stared into it, perhaps willing it to be full again, or looking for her reflection.

“You’ve never been good at being subtle,” Abby replied. “I think it’s been a long time since you’ve felt this way about anybody.”

Holtz said nothing. That was true. It was intensified because of the alcohol and just a touch of jealousy, but it was true.

But felt _what_ way? That was the question, really. The question among the many other thousands of questions she’d been plagued with because of this situation. And even if she could get past that, what was it, exactly, that Abby was proposing? A relationship? A fling? One night of unbridled passion just to get everything out of their systems? Holtzmann was good at those, though she wasn’t sure one night with Erin would be quite enough.

As for her other choices – well, she’d been on her own a long while. Her other relationships, if they could be called that, had been the short but dramatic kind for the most part. Abby no longer committed girls’ names to memory because things managed to disintegrate fairly quickly. There were a variety of reasons for that, mostly Holtz’s – distraction, boredom, spending too much time at work or with Abby.  Mostly, though, Holtzmann just did not consider herself to be _good_ at relationships.

Who was to say Erin would change all that? There was no telling whether things would be different, better, or whether Holtz would screw it up like she always did.

Her list of ifs, ands and buts grew ever longer as her thoughts rolled around in her head, snowballing and crashing into each other violently. And the alcohol certainly wasn’t helping.

“Jesus, Holtzmann, it’s not like I’m telling you to _propose,_ ” Abby said, throwing her hands up in exasperation. “Just talk to her. See where she’s at. It might be scarily similar to where you are.”

“And where is that, exactly?”

Abby shook her head. “Seriously, you can build ghost weapons that stretch the boundaries of the possible but you can’t tell the girl you like that you have a crush on her? I don’t buy it.”

That didn’t seem fair. It was easy to ask a girl out at a bar or a party or via a phone number written on the back of a cheque at a restaurant (if she was a waitress). The stakes had never been this high before.

But neither had the possible reward.

She wished it was an hour ago and she and Erin were still dancing, all hot and sweaty and losing themselves. She wished they were still out on the balcony, just them and the night air and the lingering touches. She wished they were still in the car on the side of the highway, with absolutely no idea what was about to happen. She wished that this now wasn’t her now.

She wished a giggling, kiss-bruised Erin was not coming out of the bar’s back door with her arm wrapped around the bicep of the man with the good jaw and the orange stain on his shirt.

“Crap,” Holtzmann muttered under her breath.

“Be cool,” Abby replied.

“Maybe we can jump the fence,” Holtz whispered. Abby smacked her on the arm.

“Despite all the stuff I just said, this whole competition was _your_ idea,” she reminded her. “If you’re not gonna act on whatever it is you’re feeling, then you can at least act happy for Erin. This is a big deal for her.”

Holtzmann resisted the tempting urge to pout like a child, and when Erin finally spotted them, she made a signal for her guy to _wait there,_ before heading right for their table.

“Hey, Er,” Abby greeted.

“Hey! What are you guys doing out here? I would’a thought you’d be…” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the bar and glanced at Holtzmann, and was obviously referring to her dalliance with the bartender. Holtzmann looked up, blank-faced and, as Erin’s eyes travelled down the path of red blotches down her neck, actually a little embarrassed. When it was clear she wasn’t going to finish that sentence for Erin, Abby did it on her behalf.

“Oh, y’know, we were just taking a break. Can’t stand in these shoes for too long.”

Holtz stuck her leg out straight and flexed her toes in her heeled boot, silently emphasising Abby’s point.

“But hey!” Abby went on, playfully poking Erin in the ribs. “You nabbed a good one.”

Erin beamed with pride and it made Holtz’s chest ache. She could feel Abby’s good will reaching out to her, pushing her to do the Right Thing, whatever that was.

“Yeah, he’s…good job,” she said, only half-satisfied with the string of words she’d managed to squeeze out but making up for it with an encouraging smile.

“Thanks, guys. Holtzmann, your method really works, huh?” Erin did an over-the-top wink at her but it didn’t soften the blow of the words.

“Yeah! Sure does. Hey, by the way, you’ve got a little lipstick right…” Holtzmann indicated on herself where the offending smudge was, but Erin wiped the wrong side of her mouth.

“Here? Did I get it?”

“Nope, no, other side. No, not there.”

She got the right side that time but her finger missed the spot. Frustrated (in more ways than one), Holtzmann licked the pad of her thumb, reached over and swiped it across the right side of Erin’s top lip in one smooth, fast motion.

Erin blinked and looked perplexedly at Holtz.

“Got it,” Holtzmann replied with half a smile.

“Thanks,” said Erin. The sheepish, flushed Erin. The one that only appeared in the silly and/or intimate moments (usually ‘and’).

“Say, it looks like your beau might be getting a lil’ lonely over there,” Abby said, pointing. The man in question was absentmindedly scrolling through his phone and sipping his drink. A groove appeared between Holtzmann’s brows but she bit the inside of her cheek to hold back any retorts. Abby took this as a sign of accepting her fate.

Erin looked probably more alarmed than necessary, quickly nodding and darting over there to invite the man into their circle.

 “See, now,” Holtzmann said to Abby in a low voice, “the _real_ Holtzmann method is to put your saliva on a woman and see how she reacts.” Abby rolled her eyes but gave a little snort of laughter.

“Rick,” Erin said, bringing him over by the arm, “These are my friends, Abby and Holtzmann. Uh, Jillian.” She gestured to each of them as she said their names and Rick extended a hand to each woman. They both took it, with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

“It’s nice to meet you, Rick,” Abby said politely. “And I’m really sorry to do this, but I actually really have to go to the bathroom, so if you’ll excuse me…”

Holtzmann shot her a look.

“ _Oh,_ I’ll go with you!” Erin exclaimed, before Holtzmann could say anything. “Tiny bladder,” she added, directing this inexplicably at Rick. “Always been a problem.”

“Oh yeah – in high school she used to have to pee so much the teachers stopped giving her hall passes!” Abby added, laughing.

“You guys went to high school together?” Rick asked, eyebrows shooting upward.

“Sure, we go way back!” Abby replied, but she and Erin were halfway to the door by then. She didn’t want to leave Holtzmann there, especially not after what they’d just talked about, but her bladder had other ideas, and its demands were far too loud to ignore. “Talk about it later!”

“We’ll be _right_ back,” Erin called, though to which one of them it wasn’t clear.

…

“He’s nice, right?” Erin asked. She raised her voice a little so that while she washed her hands, and while Abby was still in the stall, she could be heard. She’d been quicker this time, having gotten the hang of this peeing-in-a-tight-dress thing since the first time round. Times like these, though, she missed the practicality and comfort of the jumpsuits and combat boots.

“I suppose so,” Abby said, her voice slightly muffled by the cubicle walls.

“What do you mean you suppose so?”

“Well…what does it matter if he’s nice? It’s just about the points. You’re not gonna see him again.”

Erin was silent, the truth snapping into place inside her head. Rick was just a source of points to go beside her name, in her feeble attempt to steal third place out from under Abby. Or one of the others. She had no idea of the tally at this point, and she hadn’t seen Patty in a while.

“Yeah, I…I guess you’re right.” She shut off the tap and dried her hands carelessly on her dress, not caring if it was a little wet. The water stains could join the orange juice stains and the sweat, invisible on the black fabric.

“Why?” Abby questioned. “Did you have other plans?”

She checked out her reflection again. Her lipstick was almost completely gone – it was, more than anything, a faint stain of colour outlining her lips, with a big chunk missing where Holtzmann had wiped it off. She touched her cupid’s bow, where her thumb had swiped away the colour.

She wondered how Holtz’s lipstick had remained so intact.

“Hey, did you…did you see Holtzmann, with that bartender?” Erin swallowed, thinking back on the memory, all heat and hands and tumbling blonde curls, simultaneously dulled and intensified by the haze of the alcohol.

Holtzmann’s eyes meeting hers across the crowded room while she kissed _another woman._

“Uh…” Abby stammered, perplexed at both Erin’s avoidance of her question and the alternative that she had laid on the table. It seemed no less safe, which was to say, it was not safe at all. “No. I didn’t see it. But she told me about it.”

“Really? W-What…did she say?”

Abby blew a huff of air between her lips like a horse. “I don’t know, just that it sorta happened. I didn’t get the details.”

“Oh.” The disappointment rang in her voice, though she wished it hadn’t. There was a part of her that had been intrigued by the whole thing, this new light under which Holtzmann _shone._ She had held that other woman flush against her, hands roaming and hips grinding, and Erin wondered how much experience she’d really had at it. It seemed like a lot.

In her head, she pictured the plethora of women who might have taken Holtzmann’s unpredictable fancy over the years. Her mind’s eye gave her glimpses of buzz cuts and bobs and braids, of curves and straight lines, of tattoos and scars and clear, flawless skin in every shade.

She imagined a teenaged Holtzmann, kissing a girl for the first time, fearless even in her youth and inexperience. Maybe a little clumsy, but adapting and changing immediately because she always was a fast learner.

She imagined sure hands and deft fingers, the kind that made short work of buttons and clasps and bows. The kind that were calloused from the work they did during the day, but gentle under the cover of the night.

She imagined lips that were soft and skin that was softer.

And, as her thoughts were about to stray down an unknown path, she realised her white-knuckled grip on the bathroom sink was sending cramping pains up her arm.

“Can I ask you something?” Abby’s words broke the (relative) silence. The door of her stall swung open and she appeared beside Erin at the sinks.

Erin busied herself with fixing her hair to the effect of nonchalance, but she answered with a _yes._

“Have _you_ ever kissed another woman before?”

Erin’s fingers stilled, caught up in her locks as she tried to re-do her ponytail. That hadn’t really been what she was expecting.

“Um…unless spin the bottle counts, then no,” she answered, truthfully. “And that was a long time ago.” She frowned. “Why?”

Abby shrugged. “You just seemed a little eager to know whatever Holtzmann’s been up to. But hey, whatever. Let’s get back to your guy, hm?”

The question, and its accompanying tone, bothered Erin, though. Especially considering the train of thought that had been halted by her question. She’d been caught out, in truth. And as she and Abby went to fight their way back through the crowds, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she had done something wrong.

…

Holtz was a little paralysed, then. She sat on her hands and wiggled her toes inside her shoes, but other than that she didn’t move. She didn’t know what Abby’s game was – if she was even sober enough to have one. Maybe she just really needed to pee. Either way, she had found herself alone with the very guy Erin had been Frenching only a few minutes earlier, which was the exact place she did not want to be.

“So,” Rick began after a too-long silence. “I’m guessing _you_ didn’t go to high school with Erin.”

 _Why the hell do you care?_ was the first reply that came to mind. It wasn’t very polite, though, and he _was_ right. She was nearly ten years Erin and Abby’s junior, though it never really felt that way.

“No, we, uh…we work together,” Holtz pressed out. “Just the last couple of months.”

“All of you? What do you do?”

“Science,” was the answer she gave, deciding that the tip of the iceberg was probably more than enough for Rick. He seemed pretty satisfied, a wide grin spreading across his face.

“Wow, she’s hot _and_ smart. I really scored, huh?”

“Not yet,” she quipped too quickly to catch herself. Though she was more than aware, _painfully_ so, in fact, that Erin was not hers to be possessive of, she also knew she wasn’t this guy’s.

“Okay, fair point,” he replied, holding has hands up like a surrender. He clicked his tongue in thought, and then said: “Tell me, what do I need to do to seal the deal?”

Holtzmann’s eyes widened to the size of tennis balls. Was this guy _really_ asking her that?

It was some next-level douchebaggery to think that asking the friend of the girl you just met how to get her in the sack was a good idea. Did he not think that Holtzmann would tell her? Or maybe that was his plan. Maybe he assumed Holtzmann would simply bestow upon Erin the Good News – that she had been deemed one-night-stand-worthy – and that _she_ would proposition _him,_ armed with the knowledge that he was interested.

It was a shitty plan, that much was clear. The problem was, she wasn’t entirely sure that that wouldn’t work. Before this weekend, Holtzmann would have said with almost complete certainty that Erin was not the kind of person who went home with people she met at bars. There were far too many risk factors involved. Not to mention the fact that she was too married to her work to have an affair on the side. In the little free time she had, Erin liked to read or do Sudoku or bake. Lately, Holtzmann had even managed to get her hooked on a couple of her favourite trashy reality shows.

But the Erin they had brought with them on this trip, the Erin whom this Rick fellow had become so enticed with, was not that same person. She was on a ride-or-die mission to prove that. She’d drunk at least four different types of alcohol in varying quantities, she’d made out with a stranger, and she’d voluntarily danced in the middle of a crowded dancefloor. These were not Standard Erin Behaviours, and the lengths she might be willing to go to were unknown to Holtzmann. Sleeping with Rick, even if it was just to prove a point, might not be totally out of the question.

She couldn’t _admit_ that, though. This guy would pounce on any opportunity he could get his hands on, and that extended to the next words that would come out of her mouth, whatever they be. He was still waiting for an answer. She didn’t have one.

Holtz was poised with pursed lips and narrowed eyes when Rick’s cell phone started ringing. He put up a single finger at her, as if to tell her to hold her uncertain tongue, then held the phone up to his ear and turned his back to her. All she could see of him was the back – the shoulders that filled out his shirt, the long legs in fitted black pants, and the patch of sweat that ran between his shoulder blades and down his back.

She examined his physique from behind, tilting her head to the side for better vantage, though this move was made significantly less subtle by the alcohol she’d consumed. Rick was all the things that people praised when they talked about a good-looking guy – tall, probably a little buff underneath his shirt, a thick crop of dark hair, good bone structure…the works. Even so, and even in her tipsy heartache, Holtzmann couldn’t say she’d be tempted if the opportunity arose.

She’d had friends who’d said they would hook up with a guy just once for fun, or if they were drunk enough, or just to see what it was like. When that topic of conversation arose, she smiled and nodded and sipped her drink to keep her mouth too busy to disagree. Being with a man wasn’t something she had ever really had any interest in, and she didn’t think she ever would.

Maybe that was how Erin felt about girls, she thought.

But that didn’t seem right. Holtzmann would never flirt with a guy, and if she was on the receiving end of it she certainly wouldn’t play along. She would never have one of those looks with a guy, the long and lingering kind that defeated any need for words. She would never drag a guy by the hand to dance with her. She would never stare across a crowded bar at a guy while he was being kissed by somebody else.  

Erin had done pretty much all of those things. And what’s more, for the most part, she’d seemed to enjoy them. Even that last one, though it had been hard to tell in the moment.

It came crashing over her anew, hotter and heavier the second time than the first. It had been that bartender’s hands on her, around her neck or at her waist beneath the cover of her jacket, the bartender’s lips marking her skin, but it had been Erin’s fiery gaze that had sent waves of pleasure rolling through her. She’d half-expected the other woman to shy away, to blush or to rapidly change direction, but she hadn’t. And in those few seconds, Holtzmann had never been surer that if she chanced it, if she got up the nerve to make a move on Erin herself, it might have been reciprocated.

But then it passed. Then Erin went and made out with _this guy._ Had she missed her window? Or had there never been one to begin with?

“No, Mom, don’t—stop worrying!” Rick suddenly raised his voice into the phone, one finger in his ear to block out the external noise. Holtz snapped to attention, eavesdropping shamelessly. “No, it’s just your imagination. I promise. Because I just _know,_ okay? You’re fine. I’ll come see you tomorrow, okay?”

He hung up and slid the phone back into his pants pocket.

“Sorry, my mom – she’s just moved into a new place,” he explained, obviously noticing Holtzmann’s semi-confused, semi-bored expression. “She thinks, get this, she thinks it’s _haunted._ ”

Holtzmann’s eyebrows shot up, and the smile she fought back was like a fishhook tugging at the corner of her mouth.

“ _Reeeeeaaally_?” she asked, crossing one leg over the other, resting her elbow on her knee and her chin on her hand.

“Yeah, she’s on about a _ghost,_ furniture moving around by itself, that sort of thing.” He ran a hand through his hair. “She keeps calling me at night, worried about it. I mean, I wanna help her, y’know, but I can’t just indulge these delusions, right? Psh. Anyway, what were we talking about?”

“Delusions?” she countered, ignoring his question.

“Well, I mean, yeah. Ghosts are for horror movies and cartoons and those stupid shows where the guys go to the abandoned mansion with infrared cameras. It’s not…God, what did she say? ‘There was a woman in Victorian clothes with a blue glow and bright red eyes!’” He put on a high voice in what she assumed to be a bad impression of his mother, and then laughed at it. “Come on, that’s just ridiculous.”

“You know, Rick, I _knew_ there was something a little off about you from the moment I set eyes on ya,” Holtzmann said, waggling a finger at him. “At first, I thought it was your shameless attempts to get Erin into bed, but _no,_ it’s…” She turned her palms upward, as if she was holding an invisible plate. “It’s _this._ ”

“Excuse me?” Rick said, clearly taken aback by Holtz’s sudden change of pace.

“My apologies,” she went on, undeterred. “I should have been more specific. See, remember when I said Erin, Abby and I were scientists? Well, we happen to specialise in the area of the paranormal. Ghosts, apparitions, hauntings, the whole nine yards. It’s a combination of particle physics, nuclear engineering, and just plain ol’ fun.”

“I… _what?_ ”

It was like talking to a brick wall. A tall, muscular brick wall. “Ghosts are real, Rick,” she said, over-annunciating every word. “And your Mom’s describing a Class IV haunting, so you can give her my number and we’ll talk about taking care of that.”

She reached into her bra and handed him one of the cards she carried with her in case of ghost-related emergencies. _Jillian Holtzmann,_ it boasted, next to a phone number. _Nuclear Engineer, Proton Wrangler._ To the left was a picture of their logo, and the words: _Call the Ghostbusters!_

He looked at the card, then back at her, and then between them both several times, before settling on her face.

“Listen, buddy, in the game of Pursuing Erin, not believing in ghosts is what we like to call a deal-breaker. So I kindly suggest that you get the hell outta here before I personally disassemble every one of your atoms.”

He scoffed in disbelief, looking at Holtz like she was a conspiracy theorist, or one of those weird looking monkeys at the zoo. “Gladly,” he said, turning on his heel and heading for the door so fast that he pushed past two women on the way through.

He had been too intent on leaving to even notice that those two women were Abby and Erin, who’d arrived back from the bathroom just in time to see him leave.

Holtzmann smacked her lips together loudly and looked sheepishly at the other two women. “Well, that was…interesting,” she noted.

Abby met her bewildered look with one of her own, brows furrowing together, and little lines appearing around her eyes from all the times she had made that face before. In their field of work, it was a lot.

But Erin…Erin didn’t look shocked at all, nor confused, nor puzzled, nor dazed. No, Erin looked something worse than all of those things combined. She looked disappointed. She met Holtzmann’s gaze with hard eyes and the slightest quiver in her bottom lip, and then she huffed and shook her head.

The pride and glee Holtzmann got from telling that jerk where to go dissipated pretty much instantly when she realised that from Erin’s point of view, she didn’t look very good right now.

“What did you _do,_ Holtzmann?” she asked, her voice drenched with hurt.

And right then, Holtz knew exactly what she’d done, and she also knew that her execution had been pretty poor.

But once again, she found herself without an answer, and it was her silence that seemed to hurt Erin the most.

Erin was out the door before she could come up with anything better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of capital-T Thinking going on here. Love is complex, guys.
> 
> I don't know if I've mentioned this already, but my tumblr is belletylers if any of you ever wanna come chat!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait on this one! Life's been hectic.

_A few moments earlier…_

The hinges on the bathroom door whined from overuse as Abby pushed it open and gestured for her friend to go through first. Several strays poured in from the bar, young girls with their skirts pushed halfway up their thighs in anticipation of reaching a cubicle. Once each of them was safely across the threshold, Erin stepped back out into the ruckus of the club.

They followed the rear wall on their journey back, Erin’s fingers trailing lazily along the brick, feeling the rough surface, slightly cool to the touch. It was a longer path, but also a safer one.

Abby’s door gesture had been friendly, sure. Most of Abby’s gestures were. But her words from before rolled around in Erin’s increasingly cluttered head. She felt something overcome her that always came in times of self-doubt: her uncontrollable, insatiable need to prove herself.

Whether proving she was worthy of something, or that she _could_ finish her term paper in one night, or that ghost-busting _was_ a real science, thank you very much, she felt like she was doing it constantly. It was something she’d had a problem with most of her life, and it had followed her into each new year of adulthood like the sun followed the moon. Tonight, for the most part, had been about proving that she did, in fact, possess a certain level of game. And she had done that. And then she had let her guard down. And she had been caught out, thinking not about her successful conquest, but about Holtzmann.

She was trying to prove to Abby what a not-big-deal it was that she had been thinking about Holtzmann kissing another girl. That she’d asked about it. She was trying to shake the…guilt? Discomfort? Whatever feeling it was that came with the implications she thought Abby might be making.

She was not fixated on, or excessively interested in, whatever Holtzmann, or her hands, or…her mouth had been up to earlier. She wasn’t.  To the contrary, she was more concerned with Rick and the points she could acquire from him.

Or, at least, she had been, until he stormed by her in a huff, right when she reached the door. He didn’t even look at her when he pushed past, giving her only the brush of a shoulder and leaving her a guilty-looking Holtzmann, sitting alone atop one of the tables.

…

“Shit,” Holtzmann cursed. She turned and drove the toe of her boot into the nearest kickable object, which happened to be an old oil drum that had been spray-painted and turned into a planter. “ _Shit._ ” She started pacing, a panicked gait taking her repeatedly across the same three feet of ground over and over again.

“Holtzmann,” Abby said, trying to capture her attention.

“I blew it, Abby,” she said.

“Holtzmann, what happened? What did you do?”

She halted and threw a shocked look at Abby. “ _I_ didn’t—” She stopped herself. She did. She had. “He…” Her fingers raked through her hair, pushing the stray curls from about her face.

“You’ve gotta tell me, okay?” Abby told her firmly, hands squarely on Holtzmann’s shoulders. “Because it’s my job to convince whichever one of you is wrong to go apologise to the other one.”

Holtz bit her lip and scrunched up her noise, looking rather uncertain about that.  “What if we’re both wrong?”

“ _Holtzmann_.”

She groaned loudly, dramatically, rolling her eyes for added effect. “He was being gross! He kept asking me for tips on how to get Erin in the sack.”

Abby held up a hand, indicating that she should stop talking. “Okay, eww.” She sighed. “ _But,_ I mean, was he really being that crass? You sure you weren’t overreacting? Weren’t just a little…a lil’ jealous?”

“ _No_!” she insisted, then immediately, “Well, maybe. No. Okay, seriously, exact words.” Holtzmann put on a manly-man voice and quoted Rick verbatim: “What do I need to do to seal the deal?”

“Okay, _definitely_ eww.”

“ _And,_ when the subject of ghosts came up—”

“God, Holtz! Why are you talking about ghosts with this guy?”

“It came up organically!” she snapped defensively. “And anyway, get this: he said he doesn’t believe in them! When I told him who we were, he cleared out faster than I can say ‘ectoplasm’.” She folded her arms across her chest. “The defence rests, your honour.”

Abby puffed up her cheeks. “Wow. I, uh…rule in favour of the defence. That is, one hundred percent, a deal breaker. Erin’s gonna be crushed. I should really go after her.”

“No, wait. Let me do it,” Holtz pleaded, grabbing Abby by the arm. “I…I wanna fix this.”

Abby quirked a brow. “You sure, Holtz? There could be, y’know, feelings involved here.”

“And I’m a qualified expert on feelings,” she replied, already heading for the door. “I’ve got, like, three of ‘em.”

…

The passing of the hours had let the crowd inside grow thick and unruly. Erin elbowed and shouldered her way through the sea of hot, staggering, scantily clad bodies, chasing the exit that seemed to get farther with every step.

The darkness that wasn’t really darkness felt utterly suffocating. Above her, the lights of all colours flashed and danced upon every possible surface, erratic enough that they were just shy of doing their job of aiding anyone’s vision. Green and red and yellow streaks chased each other across the walls, crawled across the skin of the dancing masses, made the turn of the earth feel noticeable beneath Erin’s unsteady feet.

She winced as she was sandwiched between two strangers, and made a mental note of just how un-fun a dancefloor was when you weren’t dancing.

Of course, she _could_ dance. She could ignore the twisting in her gut and the voices in her head, and she could stay here awhile, find another stranger to dance with. Another notch in her belt, so to speak.

But she didn’t want to. Despite the competitive nature of the game, and the small amount of time they had spent together, Erin had actually liked Rick. Had liked his confidence and allure. That made it easy. Made _him_ easy. And she had thought he had liked her, too.

So, before she could do _anything_ else, she had to know what it was Holtzmann had said or done to him to make him bail like that.

It wasn’t that he was some dream guy, or that she even wanted to see him again. It was that she’d slipped up and lost control of the situation she’d been so proud of controlling. And somehow, that was Holtzmann’s fault. Her logic sure wasn’t at its peak right now, but that much was clear. Holtz was responsible.

The moment replayed itself in her head and she felt a fresh wave of frustration bubble up inside her. It gave her the strength to squeeze out from between the two strangers and claw her way across a few more feet of floor.

Rick was a symbol. A symbol of her ability to not totally suck at this. Her ability to be confident and attractive and flirtatious and all the things she’d always been too scared or insecure to be. Holtzmann had been the one who dragged her out of her shell in the first place – now she was taking it away from her? That didn’t seem fair. Not when she’d already gotten hers.

The doorway to the little corridor that was by the entrance was her beacon, and after sustaining bruises and probably sweating off half her makeup, she found it. The neon décor guided her to the front like stars guided a ship on the sea. The cool night air, the kind you only get in towns by the sea, blew in through the door and grazed her warm skin. She followed it like a siren call, and suddenly, she found herself outdoors.

What she did _not_ find outdoors, however, was Rick. A 360-degree survey of the area, and another just to be sure, told her that. And when she called his name, the only sounds she heard in response was the ringing in her ears, the muffled music coming from inside, and the humming of a lonely car engine.

The street was quieter than it had been when she first saw it. The partygoers were all safely inside their parties by now. The streetlights lit even and symmetrical golden circles upon the deep black of the road. The only inhabitants of the outside world, it seemed, were her, a couple of seagulls that were up past their bedtimes, and the bouncer. A different one than before, he manned a door that no one was trying to get through anymore.

That made sense, Erin thought. Because every person on the planet was inside that club.

Well, everyone except her, and Rick. And the bouncer.

“Erin!”

And…Holtzmann.

The blonde had been right on her tail, and on the outside she looked just as messy as Erin felt. Her hair’s perfect curls had unravelled, leaving waves that were uneven and locks that fell haphazardly into her eyes. One sleeve of her blazer had shifted from its stylistically rolled-to-the-elbow position. And her eyes…oh, they bore into hers with an intensity she didn’t quite understand.

Erin turned her back to the other woman, arms folded across her chest in defiance of both her and the chilling wind.

“Erin, come on. Please. Look at me _,_ ” Holtzmann pleaded. Erin didn’t think she’d ever heard her plead before. “ _Erin._ ”

Her voice was both sweet like sugar and bitter like acid, and it ripped through Erin like a blade. She whipped around to face the other woman, like she seemed to want so desperately. When she did, the eyes she found were wide, the face frozen, the mouth unmoving.

Holtzmann’s lips trembled ever so slightly, a crippling uncertainty rendering them useless. Eventually, they formed Erin’s name, but she got no further before she was cut off.

“What the hell, Holtzmann?” Erin snapped. “I thought you were trying to help me.”

“I was,” Holtz replied almost immediately, defensive and guilty. “I _am._ I just…”

‘I just’ what? _I just got too jealous. I just wanted him gone. I just didn’t like the idea of you and him. Of you and anybody else._

“He wasn’t good enough for you,” was the sentence she chose, her words slow and robotic, eyes to the ground. This had been easy in her head. It was not easy now.

Erin fumed. “We weren’t getting _married_ , Holtz! He was just meant to be a…a fling! A couple of points!” She waved her hands about in a keen imitation of nonchalance.

Holtzmann’s eyes locked on hers, a flash of frustration temporarily blinding her judgement. “If it was only about the points, why are you getting so worked up?”

That had been a bad call, and she knew it before she even said it. 

“Why am _I_ getting worked up? You’re the one who drove him off! Maybe _you’re_ the one who’s worked up!” The muscles in Erin’s neck were tense and ropy, her shoulders and jaw locked tightly, like she was about to receive a blow at any moment. Her anger was fragmented and fraying, encouraged on by the heat in her blood and the pounding in her head. “That wasn’t your choice to make, Holtz. It was mine.”

Holtzmann felt her composure slipping at the force of Erin’s anger. She curled her hands into fists by her sides. “Erin, listen to me. Rick was a jackass,” she said, firm, deliberate. “He was just here so he could get you into bed.”

“So _what_? Isn’t that the point of this stupid game we’re playing?” Erin asked, and it dawned on Holtzmann the totally different path this evening might have taken, had she kept her cool. “We don’t all have people _throwing_ themselves at us all time, you know. We can’t afford to be picky.”

Holtz frowned. Was she talking about the bartender? “That’s not—”

“And what do you care, anyway? Abby and Patty have both been doing exactly what I’ve been doing and I don’t see you chasing men away from _them!_ ”

She was right about that. Erin had gotten special treatment. Holtzmann had left Abby and Patty to their own devices, trusting their judgement and their agency. Erin deserved that, yes, but she also deserved to be saved from creepy dudes whose main interests appeared to be 1) their own ego, 2) sex that was probably deeply unsatisfying for their partners, and 3) preaching the non-existence of the paranormal. That, Holtz told herself, had been a good deed on her part. A good deed with a number of not-so-good ulterior motives.

Her silence must have been telling, because Erin kept going.

“ _All_ I wanted,” she asserted, “was a quiet weekend away with my favourite people. And you had to go and turn it into some big event, like you always do! I never wanted this, Holtz! I never wanted to be part of your dumb bet. But you forced my hand and you pulled me out of my shell and the _second_ I start to get into it you take it all away? What is it that you want, exactly?”

 _Like you always do._ It was like a punch in the gut. Holtz swallowed around the lump that was forming in her throat.

“I want…” she started to reply, but did not finish. Oh, it was a long list.

Erin threw her hands up in exasperation. “You know what? Forget it. I don’t care. I’m going back to the house. Enjoy your night. Hope you win.” Even in her current state, she had the good sense to step out of her heels and carry them in her free hand before trudging down the empty street barefoot.

Holtzmann called her name once, twice, but it was mostly out of courtesy. Erin wasn’t turning around. She knew that. And she hated it. She fell back against the rough brick wall of the club and let off all the curse words she knew, and then a few in German for good measure. She saved those for the really bad days.

…

Somehow, cloudy-headed though she was, Erin managed to successfully navigate the neat, square blocks of the seaside town until she found a street that looked familiar. The pavement was rough on her bare feet, and she knew that the scrapes and cuts and stubbed toes that she was barely feeling now would be very sore tomorrow.

Well, today, her watch told her. The smallest hours of the morning were beginning to unfold.

She liked this time of night, mostly. It made her think of devouring the final pages of a novel by lamplight, of a well-earned glass of wine after grading the last in a stack of papers, of the glory of _finally_ cracking that problem that had been bothering her all day. The streets here were quiet, the lights in houses off for the night. It was peaceful. It was strange. It was nothing like New York.

Here, there was no hum of traffic, no hustle and certainly no bustle. And suddenly, she felt far too alone with her thoughts. Thoughts that were stuck on a loop of the last few hours. Thoughts that seemed to centre on a certain engineer in a certain stupid suit.

And it was apparent, for the first time, just how much of Erin’s brain Holtzmann had been occupying of late. She was an all-pervading enigma of a woman and she had gotten herself stuck in Erin’s head, and Erin didn’t know how to get her out.

All of her emotions seemed to be directed at Holtzmann, and each new one seemed more extreme than the last. Her anger had been sour, her envy bitter, and her curiosity burning.

She didn’t know what might have happened tonight, had Rick not left, had Holtzmann not decided her fate on her behalf. Could she have done the one night stand thing, with a man who only had a first name and no real discernible personality?

Well, probably not.

She told herself it was a possibility, that she might have gone through with it, given the chance. Or she might have gone and found somebody else, had she not lost her nerve. But truthfully, it was something New Erin might have done, and she was not New Erin. She was the Erin she had always been.

If Rick had not left, she would have turned up her charm as far as it could go, while Abby and Holtzmann looked on but pretended that they weren’t. She would have smiled and made eye contact and done Holtzmann’s stupid little fingers-walking-up-the-arm move and Rick would have been so entranced by her and her irresistible allure that he would have kissed her again. His big hands would have held her tight against him and she would have felt… _smug._ Smug seemed like the closest word.

Smug to know she wasn’t bad at this. Not as bad as they thought she was. Smug, because kissing Rick did not make her feel much of anything else.

As soon as she admitted that to herself, she knew for sure she never could have gone through with it. Not while feeling nothing. She just couldn’t compartmentalise enough for that.

And as soon as she admitted _that,_ she felt a little guilty for blaming Holtzmann for Rick leaving. Holtz, who up to this point had only tried to help her.

 _But,_ her brain interjected, it wasn’t up to her. Holtz should have trusted her to come to that conclusion on her own. It was a privilege afforded to everyone else. Just because she wasn’t _going_ to have casual sex with a stranger, it didn’t mean she wasn’t _able_ to. And if Holtzmann had spent the day teaching her what having ‘game’ really meant, what the hell had she been supposed to use it for, if not that?

Was there another purpose, one that she had missed?

One she had ignored?

She rounded the corner into her street, this one just as straight, dark and quiet as the last. In the distance she could see the house, the tallest in its row, the balcony light still on from when she and Holtz had been out there earlier.

That seemed like such a long time ago, when Holtzmann had found her up on the balcony, told her she was ‘Erin freakin’ Gilbert’, that she could do anything. When she had given her the key to making strangers like her.

_The key._

“Crap,” Erin murmured aloud.

Holtzmann had the key to the house. She had locked every door before they’d left. She had turned on the alarm. Her brother Jason was very protective of his lottery house, she’d said, turning the key in the lock and sealing a future Erin’s fate.

 “ _Crap,_ ” she said again, when she realised that finding Holtzmann was going to be the only way she was going to see her bed sometime before sunrise. With a sigh, she resigned herself to the inevitability of this conversation.

She was just sober enough to form coherent sentences, and just drunk enough to speak her true mind. She had already done plenty of that this evening.

Erin inhaled deeply, and let out the biggest groan she could and throwing her head back, before turning and heading back in the direction of the club, the soles of her feet protesting with every step.

She had only gone a few metres when she stopped again, realising that Holtzmann might not actually be there. She never saw her go back inside after their fight. But she had the tracker app on her phone, so she opened it and looked for the little coloured dots that represented the location of each of the four Ghostbusters. And Kevin. You know, in case he got kidnapped or something.

The pink and orange dots – Abby and Patty, respectively – were inside the bar, still, which was situated in the top left corner of her screen. They were together. She could see herself, the green dot, on the bottom left. Holtzmann’s purple dot, though, wasn’t near any of them.

The map on her phone had straight-line streets of black and light grey shapes to show the buildings. It had green for parks and yellow for highways. And, a couple of pixels away from Holtzmann’s dot, was a long stretch of blue. That blue was the sea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, team, we are nearing the end of this adventure. I know I said that seven chapters ago but I MEAN IT THIS TIME. Thank you all again for your comments, kudos and dedication thus far.


	8. Chapter 8

When things were bad, Holtzmann retreated. Though she was a constant source of confusion to Erin, that simple fact was a reliable certainty.

When one of her new inventions didn’t work, she would hide up in the lab until she had fixed it. Sometimes, the others would have to remind her to eat, or sleep, or shower. Usually Patty.

If a sad story came up on the news, she would change the channel. Or, on the rare occasion that she didn’t have the remote, she would leave the room.

Jillian Holtzmann did not like to feel sad. In fact, she actively avoided it. Nobody _liked_ being sad, Erin knew that, but her aversion was more powerful than that. Erin often suspected that Holtz had filled up her lifetime quota of sad a long time ago.

So when Erin had yelled at her earlier, it made all the sense in the world that Holtzmann would retreat to a place where the chaos and the calm culminated into one – and other than her lab at the firehouse, that place had to be the sea.

The sand was soft between Erin’s toes, and it was sweet relief after what felt like miles of the rough concrete underfoot. In reality, it had not been that long. It was only a few minutes ago that she had found herself keyless at the house, and now she was walking towards the only woman insane enough to be sitting alone on a beach at high tide.

In the moonlight, she could see her, sitting with her chin resting on her knees, arms wrapped around herself, fingers tapping out an inaudible rhythm on her skin. Her curls blew wildly about and her bare toes were tucked into the sand, boots long discarded. The blazer she’d worn all night was now resting on her shoulders, despite the chill of the wind. At her side, a silver flask was sticking out of the sand.

Holtzmann turned around at the sound of Erin’s clumsy footfalls in the slippery sand. She didn’t say anything, though, and when Erin sat gracelessly beside her, she looked back out over the raging black sea.

There was no right way to start this conversation, but it had to be started.

“I don’t get you,” was Erin’s opening line.

“Join the club,” Holtz said, picking up her flask and taking a swig from it. She held it out to Erin without looking at her. Erin gingerly took it in both hands, but spoke before she could sip.

“It’s the middle of the night and you’re a little drunk, and you decide the beach is where you wanna be?”

Jillian brushed her knuckles under her nose. “Not drunk.”

“Oh, come _on,_ not even a little? How long have you been sitting here with this flask, by yourself?” She held up the flask in question.

“I think you’ll find upon closer inspection, Dr Gilbert, that the contents of that flask is actually just plain ol’ OJ.”

Erin sniffed at the flask, but caught nothing but the smell of sweet citrus. Carefully, she sipped, and found that Holtzmann was telling the truth.

“Besides,” the engineer continued, “nothing like fighting with a friend to get you good and sober.”

Erin felt a pang of guilt at that. She had been harsh on Jillian, without completely just cause. But she was also frustrated. And cold. And her feet hurt.

“Just…” she started, the key all but forgotten, “just tell me what happened.” She passed the flask back and Holtzmann took it. A wave tumbled across the sand before them, a few feet away.

Holtz ran her tongue over her bottom teeth as sentences formed in her head. When she spoke, it was blunt and flat and matter-of-fact.

“Not much to say. Rick was acting like a total douche, and anyone who acts like a total douche doesn’t deserve to have sex with the likes of you. I know that wasn’t my call, but I made it anyway.” She sipped. “Also,” she added with an air of nonchalance, “he said he didn’t believe in ghosts.”

Erin almost laughed aloud at the frankness of it all. “Why…why were you—”

“It came up _organically_ ,” she answered, for the second time of that night, truly astonished that her fellow Ghostbusters were _so_ shocked that she had been discussing ghosts, of all things. “And what was I meant to do? Just let you waste all your limited flirting energy on a non-believer?” Holtzmann finally looked at her, then, the shadow of a grin on her lips.

Erin scoffed. “Well,” she conceded, “that is kind of a deal-breaker.”

“That’s what _I_ said!”

“ _But,_ ” Erin interjected, calmly but firmly.

“Yep, there’s always one of those.”

“Did you consider just…telling me about it?” she asked. “Letting me make my own choices about Rick?”

Holtz didn’t answer, which was answer enough.

Looking at her now, small and pale and a little unravelled, Erin realised she wasn’t mad. She was just here. Whatever had been going through Holtzmann’s mind at the bar, it hadn’t been the intention to hurt her.

“I mean, I get it.” Erin placed her palms flat on the sand at her sides and leaned back, stretching out her long legs. “It must be hard to watch the student become the master.”

There was a wickedness in her voice that made Holtzmann beam.

“I think you’ve got a ways to go, my young Padawan.”

“I don’t think…” She faltered, face falling. “I don’t think I want to.” She let out a sigh and lay all the way back onto the sand, back flat and eyes to the sky. “This whole competition has just…taken over my _life._ I just wanted to get away from the craziness for a couple of days but I brought all of it with me, and now it’s just a mess and it’s my fault.”

Holtzmann remained still, remained facing the water and away from Erin, but she closed her eyes and listened for the next words with all the energy and focus that she had.

“I know it shouldn’t have bugged me that I was last. But it did. I just don’t feel confident that way. I’m uncertain and a little awkward and you were right from the very beginning. I let other people do the talking when it comes to the romance stuff because I like it that way. It’s just who I am. And you’re just gonna have to deal with that.”

The blonde looked over her shoulder at this woman, this woman that she liked _so_ much, her hair splayed out messily beneath her, her chest rising and falling with each breath, tiny moons in her eyes. She _really_ looked at her. And she understood.

“Holtzmann?” Erin asked, eyes fixed on the stars. “Are you gonna say something?”

“Yeah, uh-huh. Yep.” Holtzmann swivelled around to face her, propping an elbow up on one knee and straightening her other leg. “This? _So_ my fault. I let this dumb feud take over everything. Me. So you don’t always make the first move – that’s fine! This is my stupid argument and I don’t wanna be the reason your vacation ends up sucking.” Frustrated, she flopped back onto the sand beside Erin, landing with a soft _thud._

“Well, I wouldn’t say it _sucked,_ ” Erin said sheepishly. She turned her head, and her nose was only a couple of inches from Holtz’s cheek.

“I think…” Holtz went on, staring skyward. “Had I known some of the things I know now, I wouldn’t have done it. This whole competition.”

That surprised Erin a little, that she could mean more to Holtzmann than pride. “Like what?”

Holtzmann bit her lip. “Like…how much it sucks to have you be mad at me. Or how disturbingly fine I was with watching Rick’s ass move in the opposite direction when I knew it would probably hurt you to see it. Or…what it felt like to see him kiss you.” Her fingers drew patterns in the sand between them, swirls and jagged lines and circles, her face a model of concentration.

Erin felt a knot twist itself in her stomach. “Oh. You…you saw that?”

“Yeah. Guess we’re even on that one, huh?” She found Erin’s eyes in the darkness. Even here, under the cover of the blackest sky, with the tiniest of smirks on her lips, Holtz could make her blush.

“You don’t get to take all the credit, Holtz,” Erin told her, looking back up at the sky and trying to will the flush from her face. Her fingers locked together and rested on her stomach. You didn’t just try to change me, I wanted to. I wanted to be New Erin. Someone who was cool and collected, and…just fucking _different._ And maybe that’s stupid…I don’t know…but I wanted to be someone else for a while. Is that stupid?”

The weight of it fell on Holtz’s shoulders, then. It crashed down. A wave broke, closer this time, darkening the sand near their feet. She sat up, knees to her chest, shoulders hunched.

“God, you’re not—you’re not stupid. I am,” she said, running her hands over her face. “I’m unbelievably stupid. And I’m a shitty person for making you feel like this.”

Erin turned to the side, propping herself up on her elbow, worried lines etching themselves onto her forehead. “Holtz, it’s okay, it’s—”

Holtz shook her head. “No, it’s not. What I did to you, to Rick, that was selfish.”

“It wasn’t _selfish_. A little reckless, maybe, but not selfish. What could you have possibly gained from all of this?”

Holtz could think of a couple things.

It was nearly impossible to draw the line with Erin. The line between being the supportive, encouraging friend, and the girl with the big ol’ crush. And she would be lying if she said that at some point during this whole process she had not imagined the outcome of Erin’s newfound confidence affecting her in a positive way. But she had been okay with that, up until now, because Erin had been okay with it, too.

The Erin she had inadvertently created was not her Erin. Her Erin, _this_ Erin, was a real life person that she had tried to mold like clay. She was a person with a heart and a mind and sand-speckled skin, and a hole where her self-esteem should have been. But oh, she was perfect. And it killed Holtz to think that Erin believed she was anything else. Or worse, that she had made her believe it.

“I don’t know when,” she said, tentative, fingers stilling in the sand, eyes on the sea. “But, somewhere along the line, I did something that made you feel like you had to change. I never wanted you to feel like that, Erin. And I would _never_ want you to think that I want that.”

 Erin believed her. Up until an hour ago, she would never had thought twice about it. And she did not think she would ever think twice about it ever again.

“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you, Holtzmann.” Erin sat up too and placed her right hand over Jillian’s left, the sand coarse on their skin. Her fingers stilled under Erin’s, but she was not done.

“I made you feel like…” she scoffed lightly, shaking her head at the idiocy of her past, and the thrilling terror of her immediate future. “like you needed to be something you’re not, even though…” Her larynx bobbed in her throat as she swallowed. “Even though everything you _are_ is…”

There weren’t any more words.

She turned her head in Erin’s direction, and she saw her.

She saw the way the free wisps of her hair danced in the wind, the freckles on her arms, felt the soft warmth of her hand. Her heart hammered in her chest. A wave erupted on the sand, barely shy of their toes.

And then, Holtzmann kissed Erin, full and sweet and sure.

It was tentative, Holtz’s lips careful but deliberate against hers, softer than Erin expected them to be. Their noses bumped together clumsily, but Erin barely noticed. Holtzmann’s hand was in her hair, then, her thumb just barely brushing against her cheekbone, the stray grains of sand caught between them delightfully rough.

Holtz pulled away first, with the final ounce of restraint that she had, leaving Erin dazed and disorientated. The only people that were in the world were them, the only sounds were the rumbling of the waves and the blood thumping in her ears and the uneven breaths rattling through her.

“Oh,” Erin said. It was the only thing she could say, when she realised that Holtzmann’s kiss had been the end of the sentence she couldn’t finish. Holtz’s face was just inches from hers, bathed in shadow, but she could see the corner of her mouth lift into a half-smile.

“Yeah,” she replied. And with that one word, she had laid her heart on the line.

Erin took a shaky breath. Of all the things Holtzmann could have said or done, _that_ had been pretty far down the list. She was lost, Holtz’s hand still on her cheek. It felt like a long time before she said anything again.

“Erin?” Holtzmann prompted. She was so afraid, so afraid she’d make a wrong turn, so afraid she already had. The silence was so much worse than the yelling, but kissing her had been so worth it.  She removed her hand and put a few more inches’ space between their mouths.

“I, um…” Erin stammered. “Wow. That’s…that’s new.”

Holtz let out a laugh but shook her head. “It’s not that new.”

“Oh,” she said again. She blinked a few times, and Holtzmann gritted her teeth as she watched the cogs turning in Erin’s brain. She felt painfully raw, and was unable to stop herself from speaking just to fill the silence.

“Erin, hey, come on,” she prompted, going to great efforts to keep her voice steady and even. She tried so hard to not let on how simultaneously ecstatic and frightened she was, but she did not think she was doing a very good job. “Just…say the word, and I won’t do it again. Ever. Not if you don’t want…It’s fine. I’ll be fine. I’ve gotten over straight women before. I can do it again. Just takes a couple trips to the hardware store, some snacks, and a few bottles of something strong. Say, while I’m at the hardware store, I could pick myself up some supplies to build myself a robot girlfriend. What do you think? I could program it to…” she trailed off, scared of the quiet but reserved to its inevitability. “Erin, you’re not saying the word. You’re…not saying _any_ words.”

Erin sucked in a breath at the sound of her name, and then she looked at Holtzmann, and the two actions seemed the same. They felt like they kept her heart beating in her chest, her mind racing, her blood running.

She got it, now. She got what had been so strange about the past few days. The semi-permanent butterflies, the goose bumps, the lingering looks. The impulsivity and the yearning and the bitter jealousy. It all made so much sense.

And Holtzmann was right. She had to say the words. She should say them, she thought, so that she could be sure that they were on the same page. So she did.

 “Not straight,” were the ones she chose, with a shake of her head. Though she barely got them out before her lips crashed against Holtzmann’s again, in an attempt to wipe the satisfied grin off her face.

…

Erin did not know how long they sat there on that beach. The moon climbed high into the indigo sky, casting a pearly glow over them both. The sand where they lay had grooves and dips that mirrored the curves of their bodies pressing into it. The surface of it was rough, but Holtzmann’s lips were so soft that it went unnoticed. Holtz’s fingers danced lightly over her arms, her stomach, her neck, and Erin’s settled at the other woman’s waist, feeling the heat of her skin through the cotton of her shirt, their touches cautious and undemanding.

And that was all of it; lips asking for nothing but hers in return. Fearful to break for the words that may spill out, for the questions that were still unanswered, for the silence that was all-consuming save for whistle of the wind the rumble of the waves. Right now, Erin’s mind was blissfully free of anything but this feeling. For a few long, precious moments, it was just the two of them and the sea.

She might have stayed there till sunrise, if not for exactly two things. The first was the fact that the goose bumps on her arms were no longer because she was nervous – they were because she was _freezing._ Holtzmann was warm all over, but she was wearing a freaking _suit._ The little black dress Erin wore may have done her some favours, but keeping her warm wasn’t one of them. Each time the wind whipped at her exposed limbs, it occurred to her to protest, before Holtzmann captured her lips in another kiss and she would momentarily forget.

The second thing, though, was worse. She was so lost in Holtz’s kisses – in her warm mouth and daring tongue, and the way she would occasionally nibble her bottom lip – that she didn’t notice the way the waves crawled up the sand, up and up and up, until she felt the chilling embrace of the sea curling around her bare ankle. She squealed into Holtzmann’s mouth and then broke away, quickly finding her feet and scuttling further up onto the dry sand.

Holtz let out a low throaty chuckle and got to her feet, brushing off the sand as she did so. She gingerly crossed the distance between them, feet sinking in the sand with every step.

“Can we…go?” Erin said, her lips tingling and kiss-bruised. She did not say where. “I’m really cold.”

“Say no more,” Holtzmann replied, shrugging off her jacket and handing it to Erin. The gesture was a little forced but it was sweet, and Erin pulled the jacket around herself as tight as she could. “C’mon, Gilbert, let’s get you home.”

Holtz picked up her boots and cocked her head in the direction of the street. The urge to sling an arm around her shoulders, like she’d done a million times, rose up in her, but she fought it, a wave of tension rolling through her. Her touch felt too loaded to throw around so carelessly, so she didn’t. She just walked, and Erin did too.

The further they edged from the sea, the louder the silence between them. With every step there were no churning waves, no howling winds, just the scuffing of their bare feet on the pavement.

Erin felt her cloudy mind clearing, as if the haze that had been blurring her senses all night had finally lifted. Maybe it was the fresh night air sobering her. Maybe it was the shock she was in. It was hard to tell. The dizzy warmth in her had gone, but something like uncertainty had remained in its wake. She cast her eyes over Holtz’s face, over the apples of her cheeks and the curve of her nose and the dimple beside her mouth, and the feeling eased a little. But it came back as soon as she contemplated what on earth _that_ meant, so she immediately sought a new train of thought.

“Did you ever hear from Abby or Patty?” she asked, suddenly thinking of their friends.

Holtz scratched the back of her neck and then pulled out her phone. “Yeah, ‘bout an hour ago. Abby called. Patty texted. I told them both I was fine, and that I was taking a walk. They seemed to buy it.”

“Oh?” Erin replied.

“Well, they’re still at the bar,” she explained, showing her the screen before slipping the phone back into her pocket.

“Huh.” Erin was a little miffed that no one had thought to check on _her._

“I said that you were at home,” Holtz added, as if she had known Erin’s thoughts. And it occurred to Erin as she said that the lack of truth in all of that.

“Holtz, are we…” Erin started hesitantly. “Are we lying? Is that—Is that a thing we’re doing?”

Holtzmann puffed out her cheeks. This _we_ she spoke of was foreign and undefined. “Wow. Umm…well, right now, we’re walking,” she began, “and when we get home, I’m gonna make us grilled cheese—”

“Oh, _God,_ yes,” Erin interrupted, realising how hungry she was. Holtzmann smiled at the outburst.

“And then…” she continued. “We’ll see.”

Erin was satisfied with that, or at least she seemed to be, because she was quiet. Holtzmann let out a breath, inwardly impressed at her own levelheadedness, sound logic and coherent sentences. On the inside, she felt like she might combust. If there was any room left for human error in this situation, it was here and it was now, and it was probably going to be hers.

This street, this quiet, empty street, was their purgatory. They’d crossed a boundary back on that beach, and each step on the pavement was a step closer to either a good place or a bad one.

She had thought, all this time, that ever kissing Erin had been a bad move if there ever was one. Totally out of the question, she had told herself again and again and again, in all the times it had been most tempting: when she caught a whiff of Erin’s fruity shampoo or when they had danced together, or on the balcony, or any other of a hundred times before that. But she’d made the move anyway, having found herself fresh out of the ammunition that was her words, and with a pulse that beat too fast for rationality.

And the world hadn’t exploded. And Erin – Erin had kissed her _back._ They were so wrapped up in each other that the tide almost threatened to wash them out to sea. And if it had, Holtzmann thought, at least she would have drowned happy.

That kiss had been the _best_ kind – that which was so overpowering that any thought of _what next?_ was banished from their minds. That unspoken next was now, and she felt a little lost.

As they walked, their steps fell in and out of sync, and a couple of times, the backs of their hands would brush together.

It was Erin who interlaced their fingers amidst the silence. And that made her feel okay, for now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You didn't hear this from me, but maybe keep an eye out for a potential rating change for this story... ;) (maybe) 
> 
> Find me on tumblr @ belletylers. 
> 
> Much love to all of you for reading, kudos-ing and/or commenting!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a rating change. You've been warned.

Watching Holtzmann cook was like watching Holtzmann build a new gadget: equal parts scary and impressive. And really, really messy.

Though grilled cheese had sounded simple to Erin when it had been mentioned it earlier, the scene unfolding before her as the engineer prepared two of something she affectionately dubbed a ‘McHoltz’ was anything but. It was a good thing her brother Jason kept his fridge well-stocked, she remarked as she sliced and stacked and seasoned.

Holtzmann was painfully aware of the show she was putting on, she really was, but she couldn’t help it. Despite the late hour and the long day, there was something of a spring in her step. Erin Gilbert had held her hand. Not only that, she’d held it all the way home. It had made her heart soar, and then sink back down again when she’d had to let go to fish her keys out of her pocket.

As a rule, Jillian loved the unknown. The unexplained. The mysterious. Hell, she was a Ghostbuster for that very reason. And she loved using her knowledge of the inner workings of the universe to unravel every riddle on offer.

But the unknown before her now, the one where reckless actions could potentially have pretty dire consequences, well…she didn’t love that one so much. But as Erin’s fingers had curled around her own, as they walked together through the silent streets, the thought all but left her mind. With every step, and every second that passed, she convinced herself a little more that this wasn’t all about to come crashing down around her. But still, she couldn’t be sure.

All she could be sure of was that Erin’s hand was warm and soft and there. And that she liked the feeling – she was sure of that, too.

She held onto that feeling of temporary certainty, as she filled the empty house with the sounds of the knife rhythmically striking her chopping board and the clatter of crockery.

Erin just looked on as Holtzmann sliced and diced with the concentration of someone trying to split an atom. She was sure that at one point she saw the other woman’s tongue poke out the corner of her mouth – a sign of the deepest focus.

The sandwiches sizzled as they hit the hot surface of the frying pan and Holtzmann pumped a fist in the air as they maintained their structure.

“They look _good,_ ” Erin said, looking over Holtz’s shoulder. “I didn’t know you cooked.”

“Not sure I’d call _this_ cooking, but…as a matter of fact, I do cook,” she replied, a little smug.

“What do you like to make?” she asked. At the firehouse, they almost lived off takeout, and Holtzmann had a permanent supply of snacks, so she’d kind of assumed that the woman had the diet of a college sophomore. It made sense, though, she supposed. Holtzmann was creative in a calculated way, the kind of way that allowed a person to create a machine that churned throw ghosts like a chainsaw through a tree. She followed recipes or instructions wilfully until she chose follow her instincts instead, and those were strong and daring.

And she was good with her hands.

“Oh, y’know,” she said, adjusting the heat on the stove. “Stuff. Fried stuff. Stuff with cheese. Sometimes fried stuff with cheese. Plus damn good pastries. I’m very versatile.”

Erin laughed softly. “I’ll bet,” she replied, her mouth close enough to Holtz’s ear to send a little shiver down her back when she spoke.

Holtzmann turned around so that her back was against the countertop and her front was to Erin, who instinctively stepped back, realising just how close she’d been.

“Maybe I could…try one of your pastries sometime?” Erin suggested hesitantly. It just seemed like the right next sentence to say.

Holtzmann didn’t reply, though. Instead, she looked like she was fighting back a smile, her lips twisted as if she’d just bitten into a lemon.

Erin half-squinted at her, tilting her head sideward. “What?”

She shrugged. “Nothing.”

“C’mon, what is it?” Gently, Erin poked her in the arm, and Holtz couldn’t keep the toothy grin from spreading across her face, fear and anxiety be damned.

“I just…kissed Erin Gilbert. No big deal,” she finally said, her voice delightfully melodic. Bravely and playfully she reached for Erin’s waist, her touch light. Erin, embarrassingly ticklish, flinched and blushed all at once. It was amazing. Holtz let her hands fall back to her own sides anyway, afraid of but relieved by the space left between them when she did.

“I…yes, that…that happened,” she stammered in reply, looking at the ground but smiling. She didn’t have an explanation or a reason – _you started it_ didn’t seem like it would cut it. But maybe she didn’t need one. “I didn’t, um…expect that to happen.”

“Well, sometimes,” Holtz offered, “the best decisions are the spontaneous ones. Like when you said that ghosts were real while on camera. Or when you socked that reporter in the eye.” She smiled at the glorious memory.

Erin scoffed, thinking back on both of those moments, and thinking that they might be bad examples. Directly, they’d resulted in her getting fired and getting a bad rap in a major news publication. Indirectly, though, they’d led her to the here and now.

Her small streak of impulsiveness had been something she’d tried to stamp out for most of her adult life. Mostly, it was to avoid things like half-baked jokes blurted out at a dinner party to fill a silence, or making ill-informed purchases on the internet in the middle of the night. The small, usually harmless things that the right person might find endearing, but made most people just a little uncomfortable.

Her impulses weren’t always disastrous or extreme. It had been a last-minute decision to follow Abby and Holtzmann into that haunted mansion the day they’d all seen their very first ghost. It had been spontaneous, when asked by a crowd of the press the identities of the four gun-toting, jumpsuit-wearing superheroes, to call out, “We’re the Ghostbusters!”, embracing the name for the very first time. And kissing Holtzmann…well, she certainly hadn’t planned on that either. Maybe that one _could_ be classified as a little extreme.

Her glance shifted to the frying pan behind Holtz, as the smell of the sandwiches started to waft up towards her, pulling her out of her thoughts. God, she was starving.

 _Oh, man,_ Holtzmann thought, staring up at her, with her big, dazed eyes and her messy hair, and smiled crookedly. “I am so screwed,” she said, softly, under her breath.

Erin blinked and shook herself out of her hunger-induced stupor to look back at Holtzmann. “Sorry, Holtz, what did you say?”

The engineer ran the tip of her tongue over an incisor thoughtfully. It astounded her that even now, Erin could completely miss just how enamoured she was with her (even if it was because of hunger).

“I said,” she went on, twisting round to flip the sandwiches over in the pan, “I think these are almost done.”

…

 Erin Gilbert did not eat her crusts.

“That was probably the best sandwich I’ve ever eaten in my entire life,” Erin said, letting out a sigh and placing her plate aside.

“You mean the best three-fourths of a sandwich,” Holtz replied, plucking one of the discarded scraps from the plate and taking a bite. “But thank you.”

“I have a theory that everything tastes better when you’re drunk,” she explained. She wiped the sides of her mouth to free them of any stray crumbs.

“Even vodka?”

“ _Especially_ vodka.”

“It’s a good theory,” said Holtz, mouth half-full, crossing one leg over the other as she leaned against the counter, the edge pressing into the small of her back. She mulled it over a minute, chews slowing as her brain sped up. “Just out of curiosity, how drunk _are_ you?”

Erin thought about it, crossing her legs too and unconsciously mirroring the other woman’s posture as she stood beside her. The night had been long and the drinks numerous, but she didn’t feel at all like she had earlier – like her skin might burn up, heart beating just a little too fast. She felt steady on her bare feet, heels discarded at the door on the way in. She felt a little less steady inside her head, but she didn’t think the alcohol was (completely) to blame for that.

“Enough that what would have been a good sandwich on a normal day was, like, a religious experience,” she answered, truthfully, with a smile. She fiddled with the hem of her dress. “But…not enough that I would do anything…”

“Anything?”

“Anything I’d regret,” she finished, meeting her eyes, her voice surprisingly firm. 

Holtz’s eyebrows shot up, the remaining scrap of sandwich nearly falling from her grasp. Wanting badly to recover, she put it aside on a dirty plate, much more interested in Erin than it.

This, eating pre-hangover food in the kitchen together in the middle of the night, this did not seem like the situation she’d dreaded all the way here. This was easy. Oh, it was so easy. Easy enough that the vision of a future like this flaunted itself temptingly in her mind’s eye. But that was stupid, she told herself as she continued to think about it. About kissing Erin, about kissing her again, about cooking for her and touching her and enjoying her company even on the laziest of days.

These were not the gates of hell she faced, but of a heaven she might never get to see. Maybe that was alright. Not-heaven wasn’t the same as hell.

“So, what happened on the beach, what you said…” Holtzmann started. The next words died in her mouth. Erin would have to say them for her, or else they might never be said.

“I meant that.” Erin swallowed, the words feeling heavy on her tongue even the second time. “About not being straight.”

Holtz licked her lips. Hearing it was a bit of a shock to the system after so many attempts to convince herself of the contrary. The four of them – they shared a lot of themselves with each other. Holtzmann wondered why she’d never known this. Holtzmann wondered what else there was that she didn’t know about Erin Gilbert.

“How come you never said?” Her voice was soft, undemanding. At least, she hoped it was. 

“I wasn’t sure,” she replied, staring into space. “I just kept thinking, if it was true I would have figured it out by now. So I tried to ignore it, and these feelings just kept presenting themselves, and…” she motioned with her hands as she spoke, “I found myself unable to separate my confusion from my other feelings.” Her eyes met Holtz’s. “I don’t know, it kind of seemed to all centre around you.”

“Me?” Holtzmann quirked a brow and pointed to herself.

“I wasn’t keeping you in the dark, Holtzmann. Saying it to you was the first time I’ve said it to anybody.”

 _Whoa._ That was heavy. Holtzmann immediately searched her mind for words of affirmation. “Congrats,” was about the best she could come up with. She stuffed her hands into her pockets.

Erin laughed softly. “Thanks.”

They were quiet and still for a minute, trapped in a valley with high walls. Holtz could tell without even looking at her that Erin had gotten stuck in her own thoughts like a person gets stuck in mud, and she wanted to say a lot, to ask a lot, to listen a lot, but she couldn’t quite get a grip on the words.

Erin was first to move, standing up straight and going to clear the dishes.

“Er, don’t worry about—” Holtzmann started.

“No, it’s okay.” She placed both plates in the sink and turned on the hot water before picking up the little yellow bottle of detergent beside her and giving it a generous squeeze. “I’ll just leave them to soak awhile.” Leaving it to fill slowly, she leaned against the counter on the opposite side of the kitchen, so they were facing each other.

“What a woman,” Holtz quipped, wanting her to smile again. She did. And then she stopped, and Holtzmann watched the gravity settle in her bones. She pursed her lips like she was about to ask a question.

“Holtz, do you think _you’re_ spontaneous?”

She wanted to say that she was. She wanted to say that she flew through life by the seat of her pants in all regards. On the surface, and from the outside, it probably seemed that way. She was devil-may-care in her ability to start a dance party in the middle of the lab, or in her flair for throwing together outfits of seemingly random garments that she had fallen in love with at second-hand stores. She was quick-witted and flexible, but found the most comfort in routine. On Thursdays, they ate Chinese food. On Friday mornings, they ate the leftovers. She liked it that way.

She was meticulous in her work, scouring it over and over for mistakes or errors or chances for improvement. When creating something new she made plan after plan after prototype until every detail was perfect. She was the kind of person that had a finely-tuned routine for talking to women. She didn’t take big decisions lightly, and was reckless only when she was sure that others would be safe from the consequences.

Well, mostly.

Jillian Holtzmann was spontaneous in the way that she might throw a bag of potato chips (or three) into the shopping cart at the grocery store, or do another circle around the block if a great song happened to come on the radio at the last second. But it didn’t go much further than that.

“Not really,” she answered. “I mean, sometimes. Usually not, though.”

Holtz could see Erin’s calm disintegrating as she untangled the situation in her mind, and the ground beneath Jillian’s feet suddenly felt a lot less stable. They were doing this.

“So…k-kissing me…it wasn’t just something you thought of in the moment? That was something you’d wanted to do before?”

 “Yes.” Frank, honest. A single word was far too short to describe the feeling of wanting that Erin was asking about, but it was what she chose.

“How…long? How long for?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. A while?”

“Holtzmann,” she said, and there was an edge to her voice.

Holtz huffed. “Since Times Square? Maybe before. I don’t know.”

That wasn’t entirely true. She knew the second she laid eyes on Erin in her little tweed two-piece that she’d very much like to kiss her if she ever got the chance, but she didn’t actually think she ever would. It was an attraction-first, feelings-later situation. She couldn’t pinpoint when one became the other.

“Wow, that’s…a while.” Erin shifted her weight from foot to foot. Her eyes darted back and forth, all those days replaying in her mind from a whole new angle.

“Told ya it wasn’t new.”

Her brows drew together and she held her hand up as a thought occurred to her. “So—wait, did you have some kind of plan? Was that…I mean—did you set this thing up from the start?”

It dawned on her how scary that thought might be for somebody like Erin. Somebody who’d just discovered a whole new part of themselves.

“No, Erin. God, no,” she assured her. “The talking and the dancing and the fighting…that wasn’t just some scheme to get you to make out with me.” She almost laughed at the idea. “But it wasn’t just some spur-of-the-moment thing, either, ‘cause I’d had too much to drink and you just happened to be there.”

“Then…what was it?” Those were two extremes of a spectrum, the middle of which was unfamiliar territory. Hell, there was nothing about this that wasn’t.

Holtzmann straightened herself and crossed the kitchen in three steps, stopping just short of her. Being this close to her suddenly felt electric—not like the thrum of a current but like the unruly strike of a lightning bolt. Her fingers twitched by her sides, aching just a little bit to touch her.

“Erin, I kissed you because…I really, really wanted to.” A fishhook smile lifted the left corner of her mouth and she shrugged at the simplicity of it all. “It was a little on the reckless side, yeah. Probably not the kind of recklessness I’d make a habit of. But when you consider all the times I wanted to and didn’t…” Blushingly she looked at the ground, feeling altogether pretty small and pretty sheepish about that.

“Really?” Erin’s eyes were wide and bright and Holtz nearly lost herself in them. She swallowed around a lump in her throat. This had to be said. Tomorrow may not bring another chance.

“I wanted you to get it,” she went on, her words slightly stilted. “I wanted you to get how bad I felt, how _much_ I felt. In that moment, it was the only thing I could give you. I ran out of words to convince myself, or you or anybody else that I wasn’t _feeling_ someth—”

And what she felt, before the words could even finish forming, were Erin’s lips on hers again, hard and certain. Holtzmann sighed into her and closed the gap between them, feeling Erin’s body press against hers from thigh to hip to stomach to mouth. The shock didn’t faze her this time; she was too grateful for it. Her hands found Erin’s waist, fingers digging in at the sheer excitement of touching her.

When they broke apart, there was a darkness in Erin’s eyes that Jillian hadn’t seen before, but, oh, she’d dreamed about what it might look like. Swollen pupils looked out from under heavy eyelids, and Holtz felt her heart speed up.

“Yeah?” she asked, and Erin quickly nodded in reply. _Yes._

She leaned in to latch her lips onto Erin’s neck, setting tiny fires along its side, smelling the stale perfume at the base of her throat. She turned her head to allow her better access, and Holtz nipped at the sweet spot at the juncture of neck and shoulder. Her teeth set the skin ablaze and her tongue quickly laved over the wound, and as she heard Erin’s breath hitch slightly, she made a mental note to file that away under ‘things Erin likes’.

“Holtzmann,” she sighed, and Holtz was pretty much set on the fact that there was no sweeter sound. Only encouraged, she worked her way upward and flicked her tongue across Erin’s earlobe. “ _Holtz,_ ” she said again, and immediately she realised that it was not out of praise, but something else.

“What? What is it?” Her hands moved to brace Erin’s forearms and a look of worry crossed her face. Erin’s eyes darted over to the corner of the room, where the tap was still running and mountainous suds were growing out of the water, threatening to spill over onto the floor.

“We’re about to flood the kitchen,” Erin said, pointing, unable to hold back her smile.

…

It was halfway through their staggering barefoot journey up the staircase that Holtzmann decided she couldn’t wait another five steps before kissing Erin again. And so she did, pressing her back against the railing, wanting to feel her close, wanting to solidify this reality in her mind. She felt Erin’s lips curve into a smile against hers.

“Whose bedroom?” she murmured against her skin, hips pressing into hips just a little. “Mine’s bigger.”

“Mine’s closer,” Erin countered, and it was she who won out, in the end.

…

Hand closed around the knob, Holtzmann pushed the door shut with more care than necessary. She stood there, for a moment, nose against the wood, breaths shallow and uneven. She fiddled with the dimmer, fluctuating between the extremes of dark and light before settling on an even middle. When she turned around, Erin was sitting on the edge of the bed, legs crossed, back straight, looking up at her and waiting.

Closing themselves off like this, it felt like something new. It _was_ something new. The air had changed. The sea breeze floated in through the open window, sweet and sharp.

Erin shifted to the side and flicked her eyes the empty spot beside her on the bed, once. Holtz sucked in a breath and sat beside her. Erin’s body was warm, but there was a tension coiling through her that had not been there a second ago. The quiet between the two of them was overwhelming.

Holtzmann wondered, for the thousandth time, what Erin might be thinking.

Erin found herself wondering the very same thing. And a number of other things: How had she found herself here? What was about to happen? When was Holtzmann going to kiss her again?

When she did, Holtz’s hand was on her cheek and it was barely more than a brush of the lips. It asked nothing, demanded nothing, save for her attention. Erin felt the butterflies again, but she did not mind them, because now she knew what they were doing there.

Holtzmann broke away just enough that she could look in her eyes. She tucked a loose strand of Erin’s hair behind her ear, and it felt surprisingly intimate for such a small touch.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Erin asked, trying not to sound accusatory and/or desperate. Two minutes ago Holtz had been all over her, and now…was she having second thoughts?

“I just want to make sure that _you’re_ sure,” Holtzmann answered in a low voice. “A lot of people wouldn’t take this kind of thing lightly and—”

“What, sleeping with you?” she jibed, smirking, and shaking her head. “What makes you think I’m taking anything lightly?”

She drew her head further back, and opened her mouth to reply, but said nothing. It was clear she hadn’t considered that possibility.

“Remember what I said,” Erin went on, gingerly placing a hand on Holtzmann’s knee. They both looked down at the touch and she saw Holtz’s jaw tighten a little, her eyes light up so slightly that it might have been missed had she not been sitting so closely. “About this weekend being about trying to find a new me? I think…I think I finally found it. That thing that’s been kinda missing. I feel that. When you kiss me.” She smiled earnestly. “So…yeah. I’m sure.”

And that thought was so simultaneously wonderful and terrifying to Holtz. Their various entanglements in each other in all their capacities could only become more entangled with whatever was about to happen. There was a part of her that knew that, for her, this could never be just sex. That part told her the smart thing to do would be to walk away and let Erin seek the thrill she was perhaps seeking, elsewhere. Save them both from the heartache. But that part was drowned out by her screaming desire, and Erin’s permission to let it flow freely was all it took for everything else to seem insignificant by comparison.

How could she think of anything else but kissing her, touching her, holding her, when it was what she had wanted for so long?

It was a trick question. She couldn’t.

Right now, Erin Gilbert was here. Erin Gilbert was saying yes.

Holtz put the future from her mind and put her mouth on Erin’s with a determined grin.

Erin’s tension melted out of her, then, and the air was stolen from her lungs. Holtzmann’s hands moved to her waist and pulled her closer, and Erin wrapped her arms around Holtz’s neck. She felt Holtz’s tongue slip into her mouth, teasingly tangling with her own and making her gasp into the kiss.

Her own body radiated heat but she could feel nothing of Holtz through her jacket, so she pushed it off her shoulders. The fabric of her shirt was thin and she could feel the warm of her skin through her fingertips.

Holtz started scattering kisses down her neck again, the sting of her teeth followed by the soothing warmth of her tongue on the sensitive skin. Erin’s nails clawed into her shoulders and Holtz let out a moan as she traced Erin’s clavicle with her mouth.

Feeling though the workload was a little uneven, Erin started on the buttons of Holtzmann’s shirt. Each one opened exposed a new patch of Holtzmann’s milky skin. She got halfway down before the blonde broke away to pull the damned thing over her head, revealing a simple, nude-coloured bra. Simple, yet it stole Erin’s attention.

“It’s not very flashy, sorry,” Holtz said.

Erin tilted her head to the side. “No, I…I like it. Practical.” She tested the feeling of her hands on Holtz’s shoulders, of her fingers skimming across her collarbone, of the soft, bare skin beneath the underwire. She could see the little swell of Holtz’s stomach move in and out as she breathed. She could feel her pulse thumping under the skin. “Nervous?” she asked, biting her lip to contain the smile. The idea that she, of all people, could make Holtzmann’s heart race, was thrilling.

“Shut up,” Holtzmann replied, kissing her again. Her hands plunged into Erin’s wayward auburn hair, fingers raking through it despite the tangles. She shifted closer and Erin’s hands just happened to find themselves pressed flush against her skin, thumbs brushing the undersides of Holtz’s covered breasts.

One of Holtz’s hands found the zipper to her dress and gave it a tug. “Let’s make it even, shall we?”

“Even would be you taking your pants off,” Erin retorted, her voice breathy against Holtz’s skin, and she was surprised at her own boldness.

Holtzmann’s eyes widened just a little. “You got it,” she replied, quickly shifting to shimmy out of her suit pants before tossing them over the edge of the bed like unwanted cargo on a sinking ship. Erin stood to remove of her figure-hugging dress. The fabric fell and pooled at her feet, leaving her wearing nothing but her underwear and a red face. Holtz’s devilish grin didn’t make her blush any less, but her shyness was immediately forgotten when she pulled her by the wrist onto the bed.

“Again with the tiny bowties?” she quipped, finger grazing the one that sat square between Erin’s breasts. The garment it adorned was significantly fancier than her own, black lace with pink accents. She ran a finger from the little bow straight down the centre of her stomach, and stopped at the edge of Erin’s (matching) panties, which had their own little bow to boot. “Oh, there’s _more._ ”

“Don’t make fun, they’re cute,” Erin insisted, sounding cool as a cucumber while she was more than a little fixated on Holtz’s proximity to her panties, and the heat that was starting to burn between her legs.

Holtzmann swung a leg over Erin’s hips so she was straddling her and Erin fell back against the pillows with a soft _thud._

“They’re cute,” she agreed, leaning over her. “But they’ve gotta go.” Holtz reached around and found the clasp and unhooked it, and the bra was added to the growing pile of clothing on the floor.

Holtz dotted kisses over her chest, and Erin watched, lazily toying with her loose golden curls. She met her eyes as her tongue flicked out over a nipple, and Erin jolted slightly at the sensation. Pleased with the reaction, Holtz wrapped her lips around the rosy bud, while she tweaked and twisted the other one with her hand. Erin writhed, the sensation so good but so not enough. She let out a whine when Holtzmann switched sides, and she only slowed her movements. Jillian Holtzmann was a tease. Of course she was.

Holtzmann could feel herself getting wet, a rush of heat coming each time Erin made one of those tantalising little noises. Deciding she had tortured her enough, she started kissing a wet, hot trail down Erin’s stomach and wriggled back to rest her hands on Erin’s thighs. She was in the process of worshipping a birthmark to the right of her bellybutton when a hand in her hair stopped her.

“Wait,” Erin said. “Can I…can I touch you first?”

There was that darkness in her eyes again, and Holtz resisted the urge to pinch herself at the question. In response, she crawled back up and caught her mouth in a bruising kiss. She _loved_ kissing her. She could stay at it for hours if not for the burning sense of urgency starting to gather in her, partly fuelled by Erin’s request.

Erin was slow and tentative in her movements, unhooking the bra with care and letting it fall off Holtzmann’s body to reveal her breasts, creamy white, a little bigger than her own, a little rounder. Feeling clumsy, she brushed a thumb over one nipple and watched it harden. Encouraged, she grew a little braver, giving Holtz teasing little touches that made her feel like her skin was on fire. When she pinched one of the buds and rolled it between her fingers, Holtzmann couldn’t help but moan and grind her hips over Erin’s pelvis, trying to relieve some of the steadily building pressure.

Exhilarated, one of Erin’s hands dove lower, fiddling with the waistband of Holtz’s briefs. She wanted so badly to hear Holtz make that sound again, but this was new to her. Gently, she nudged Holtzmann off of her and rolled her onto her back, hooking her thumbs under the waistline of her panties and carefully pulling them downward.

“Erin, you...” she said as the other woman sat up to push the panties over Holtz’s ankles and onto the floor. “You don’t have to.” Though it was clear from the flush in her cheeks and the glistening moisture between her legs, that she really did have to.

Nervous as she was, inexperienced as she was, she _wanted_ to. She took one of Holtz’s hands in hers, and said, “I know. Show me.”

…

Holtzmann called her name as she came around her fingers. Her bare chest heaved as she came down, curls splayed out across the pillow beneath her, eyes closed to the bliss coursing through her.  Erin thought it might have been the hottest thing she’d ever seen.

That was until a minute later, when Holtz flipped her onto her back, nudged her legs apart, pulled her panties off, and pressed her tongue into the centre of her heat. All while maintaining eye contact.

A thought began in her mind, that maybe the eye contact thing that Holtzmann had been talking about this whole time _was_ pretty effective after all, but it only half-formed, disappearing from her mind entirely as Holtzmann’s mouth worked her most sensitive parts. Her tongue moved in long, firm strokes upward, and then every so often she would press right on her clit and Erin would feel like she might pass out.

Holtz could feel her squirming, and tightened her grip on Erin’s thighs, her thumbs digging into the meaty flesh. She picked up the pace a little, but only for a few seconds before she slowed right down again, working in slow, patient figure-eights with her tongue.

“ _Holtzmann,_ ” Erin whimpered, her hand instinctively going to Holtz’s hair. The blonde let out a moan when she combed her fingers through it and tugged just a little, feeling the pleasure shoot straight to her centre. Oh, she wanted to give Erin everything in the world when she said her name like that, but she also was far too busy basking in the glory of watching her unravel. She swirled her tongue around Erin’s entrance, revelling in the taste of her, heady and strong. Erin moaned again and Holtz felt an aching at her core, so she snaked a hand between her legs and started rubbing circles on her own clit, shameless and desperate for another release.

Holtz moved her tongue faster, flicking it over the swollen bud until Erin’s hips started bucking. She could feel herself getting closer to the edge, and, determined to have them meet it together, she wrapped her lips around Erin’s clit. The pressure was too much, and Erin let out a glorious cry, grabbing fistfuls of Jillian’s hair as she came. The sensation was enough to bring Holtz to her peak, too, and she moaned against Erin’s centre, sending a wave of vibration through her.

She brought her down with slow, deliberate strokes of her fingers, and kisses to the soft skin of her inner thighs. Gradually, she made her way upwards, a kiss to her left hip bone, above her bellybutton, the valley between her breasts and the hollow of her throat. Erin stole her lips before she could kiss the freckle beneath her right ear. It was the lazy, sleepy kind of kiss, all tangled limbs and heavy eyelids.

“Wow,” Erin whispered when she broke away, breath still coming quick.

Holtzmann looked over her, and oh, she was magnificent. “Yeah. Wow,” she agreed with a crooked smile. She rolled off Erin and settled at her side, skin on delightfully warm skin from ankle to shoulder. They lay there quietly for a few moments, catching their breath, while Holtzmann traced shapes along the side of Erin’s ribcage. It reminded Erin of the way she’d done that on the balcony. That felt like a long time ago. A lot can change between sunset and sunrise.

“I wonder what time it is,” Erin said, holding back a yawn.

“Hang on.” Holtz leaned over the edge of the bed and fished her phone out of the pocket of her discarded pants. Erin watched over her shoulder and admired the curves and lines of her naked back. “After three. And I have a text from Abby from a couple minutes ago. ‘Me + P will be home soon. If you don’t reply will assume you’re asleep. Tracker says you’re home safe.’”

“Oh, God, Abby and Patty.” Erin swallowed, her bubble having been very much burst.

Holtz saw the look on her face and clicked her tongue. “Right, well, I guess I will be going then.” Filled with all kinds of mixed emotions, there didn’t seem much she could say beyond that. It was too late (early?) for the kind of rational thinking that was required to navigate this minefield.

She clambered off the bed and started gathering up her clothes.

“Holtz,” said Erin, sitting upright. “Stay.”

“What?”

“ _Stay._ Please? I want you to.” She moved to pull back the sheets and tucked herself into them, all without getting up. “If you want to.”

She wanted to. She so wanted to.

 _What about…_ was the beginning of a question neither dared ask.

Erin couldn’t explain why she wanted Holtz close to her now, but she did. It was what she’d craved from the beginning of this whole charade, and it was hers now. For the night, at least. Not much of which remained.

Holtz flicked the lights off, dropped the bundle of clothes in her arms, and slid in beside her. Her head found Erin’s shoulder, and her hand found Erin’s hand in the dark. Her lips found Erin’s too, and for the briefest moment, Holtzmann was not scared of the morning.

She couldn’t be, when she knew she would wake up to this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aww, look at these little dorks in love. 
> 
> As hard as this chapter was to write, I did have so much fun doing it. 
> 
> I think I have a little more of this story left in me, so I'll get to writing as soon as I can. Uni has gone back so things are pretty hectic! 
> 
> Your comments and kudos are so very appreciated! Last chapter especially had some lovely ones that made me so happy to read. Thank you guys so much for reading.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I'm sorry this took so long. I started writing this story when I was on vacation and I am really no longer on vacation. Real life is hard. This probably could have been 2 separate chapters but I really liked the idea of 10 chapters, so here it is: the final installment! Enjoy.

Erin woke, not to the sound of the breeze rattling through the window, nor to the throbbing in her head, but to the realisation that her bare limbs were entangled with somebody else’s. Their legs intertwined beneath the sheets, and there was an arm lazily draped across her torso. She turned her head as far as she could to look back over her shoulder at the body beside her.

There was blonde hair on her pillow.

And a familiar body in her bed.

She carefully rolled onto her back, so that she might look at her properly. Her. _Holtzmann._

It was quite a sight – her hair a jumble of unruly curls splayed out around her head, her face mushed into the pillow. She slept on her stomach, and Erin could see her bare back, exposed by her own ruthless blanket-hogging.

Sleepily, she examined the bare skin, a creamy white, dotted with a few stray freckles here and there. She could make out the lines of her shoulder blades, and the curves of muscle that were starting to form from carrying around those heavy proton packs all the time.

She was beautiful in the messiest way, and messy in the most beautiful way. Erin liked her like this—bare and soft and bathed in morning sunlight. Without all her normal razzle and dazzle, she was still pretty breathtaking.

Erin watched her body rise and fall with each breath, and the tiny rushes of air she felt on her skin as Holtz exhaled felt almost painfully intimate, even in spite of everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours that had brought them to this very moment.

Waking up beside Jillian Holtzmann wasn’t something she had ever thought she would do, but now that she was doing it, she realised she rather liked it.

Then she realised how new and scary that feeling was. And how much she didn’t want to think about it, and how much she couldn’t stop. And how goddamn much her head hurt.

She buried her face into the pillow and let out a muffled groan.

“Not exactly the best response to get from someone when they wake up in bed with you,” came Holtz’s voice beside her, all hoarse from overuse and groggy from sleep.

Erin looked up immediately to see the blonde looking over at her, very much conscious. “Oh, no, that…that wasn’t at you,” she said, shaking her head.

“Didn’t think so,” she said, far too cocky for this early in the day. Erin didn’t mind, per se; she loved Holtz’s biting wit and her smug bravado, but it was a far cry from the woman she’d gotten glimpses of the night before.

Holtz noticed Erin’s reservation, and the lopsided grin on her face faded, settling in her eyes. She tried again. “Morning.” Her voice was softer, but the word felt somehow heavier on her tongue. Her arm was still draped across Erin’s body and she was all too aware of it, so she withdrew it. But she turned onto her side to face her properly.

“Good morning,” Erin said back. “You sleep okay?”

“You bet.”

“Must have. It’s almost ten.”

Holtz looked over at the clock on the far wall that told her exactly that. She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands and sat upright with a yawn. Then she smacked her lips together and stuck her tongue out with a frown.

“Wow, I’ve definitely had better breath,” she muttered.

“I didn’t notice,” Erin said with a shy laugh, “but I think I have some mints in my bag if you want?”

“Please.”

Gingerly, Erin sat up and swung her legs over the side of the mattress before standing up and crossing the room. She crossed her arms over her chest almost without realising it, feeling exposed, and then silly for feeling that way. She didn’t make much of a habit of walking around naked, even at home.

“You don’t have to cover yourself,” Holtz said, head tilted to the side as she watched her walk. “Nothin’ I haven’t seen already.”

Erin blinked and froze. “Sorry. I, um…sorry.”

Holtz scrambled out from under the covers and kneeled up on the end of the bed, her knees just shy of the mattress’s far edge. “Erin, hey, if you want to cover up or get dressed, _please_ do it. I won’t even look if you don’t want me to.” She made a show of covering her eyes with her hands.

Erin didn’t say anything for a moment, but Holtz could hear the zips on her bag, hear her digging about, hear her walk back over to stand right in front of her for a few long, silent moments.

“You know,” Holtz said, eyes still covered, “this doesn’t seem totally fair if _you_ get to stare at _me._ ” She peeked between two fingers to see Erin holding out a mint, and smiling.

“You can look. Sorry, it’s just weird.”

She took the mint and put it in her mouth. Erin took another one for herself and did the same.

“Weird in general?” Holtz asked, crawling back to the head of the bed to seek refuge under the covers again. “Or weird with me?”

Erin sat down and Holtz lifted the duvet for her. She slid in, feeling the soft warmth envelope her. “Both?”

They lay there for a minute, quietly and thoughtfully chewing the mints and staring up at the ceiling. 

“I s’pose that’s to be expected,” Holtz eventually said with a sigh. “Being your first time an’ all.”

“It’s _not_ weird for you? Not even a little?” Erin asked, looking at her.

“I mean, it’s _different,_ ” Holtz answered, turning to the side and propping herself up on an elbow. She swallowed what was left of the mint. “But _good_ different. Like…like how I pictured it.”

Her hand came again to rest on Erin’s stomach. Her fingers danced across the skin slowly and softly, leaving gooseflesh in their wake. They found the curve of her waist and stopped there, and Holtz leaned over to press a gentle kiss to Erin’s lips. It felt new in the light of the day, despite the remnants of the night before having left their mark on the both of them: the smudges of mascara beneath each eye, the blisters Erin had from her shoes, and a rather remarkable case of bedhead from both parties.

Holtz would give anything to stay here forever, not worrying about the world outside or the days to come or the million other things that demanded their attention. Inside these four walls they were safe from fate and from time. Inside these four walls, Erin had been hers.

“Still feel weird?” she asked, drawing back slightly. When Erin shook her head in response, she kissed her again.

And it didn’t. Not when Holtz touched her like that. In those moments, it felt nothing but totally natural. She liked those moments. Inside their boundaries she didn’t question herself, she didn’t worry.

“Minty fresh,” Erin murmured, pulling away. Holtz snorted with laughter, burying her face in the crook of Erin’s neck.

“I have a question,” she announced a moment later, resting her head on Erin’s shoulder.

“Okay.”

“When I flirted with you, shamelessly, on, like, a daily basis, and you acted like you had no idea, _that_ was because…” she waited for Erin to fill in the rest of her sentence.

“Because I had no idea.”

“Seriously?” Holtzmann guffawed, sitting up straight to look at her.  

Erin shrugged. “I’ve never met anyone…like you before, Holtz.”

“And when you say ‘like me’ you mean…”

“I mean like _you._ You’re different. I mean I wondered, sure, but I wasn’t certain if…” she stared at her hands, clasped together in front of her.

“If what?”

“If you liked me.” A rosy pink spread across her cheeks. “Like that. Or if that’s just…how you are.”

Holtz fought back a smile. “Oh. Well, just to be clear…”

The blonde slid further underneath the covers, throwing one last wicked grin in Erin’s direction before settling herself between her thighs. She began peppering kisses to her chest and her stomach. Slowly, she moved lower, and lower again, her tongue drawing fiery trails across bare skin until Erin was squirming beneath her.

“Holtz—” she hissed.

“You want me to stop?” she asked, pausing to look up at her for certain confirmation, fingers splayed across the meaty flesh of her thighs.

Erin shook her head, the sight of it far too enticing to say no to. “You’re _really_ good at that.”

She didn’t have to say that she knew she was – her tongue pressing up against the burning heat between Erin’s legs, and the glimmer in her eyes as she did it, was answer enough.

Holtzmann had long been all about the giving, and her process was well-refined, as it was in most situations. In general, she found it a lot easier this way—the art of reacting to someone going down on you was similar to the art of looking surprised and pleased when opening a present in front of the person who gave it to you. She didn’t think herself to be particularly good at either, but she knew how to do _this_ , and she didn’t mind. With Erin, though, there was an added layer of pleasure. The little power trip she went on every time she touched her just right and was rewarded with a moan or a whimper – that was worth the aching jaw and the leftover pent-up sexual frustration.

Erin’s fingers were raking through her messy hair, her breath coming quicker with the seconds, when a knock at the door made them both freeze. Holtz stilled her movements; she was little more than an unmoving shape under the sheets.

“Erin?” Abby’s voice sounded from the other side of the door. “Erin, are you awake?”

Erin was silent, eyes wide. She lifted the duvet to look at Holtz, hoping for guidance, though the sight of her nestled between her legs was rather distracting.

“Say something,” Holtz mouthed at her, cocking her head towards the door, looking equally alarmed.

“Y-Yeah, I’m awake. What’s up?” she answered, putting on her best just-woke-up voice.

“Can I come in?”

“ _No!”_ she snapped, far too loud and far too fast. She felt Holtz’s grip on her thighs tighten.

“Why, what’s wrong?” Abby asked.

“No, it’s just I…” she looked at Holtzmann again, who shook her head and shrugged. “I’m naked!” she eventually called back, cringing the second the words came out of her mouth, true as they may be.

She could hear the judgement in Abby’s silence. “Why are you naked? Are you alone?”

“ _Yes,_ I’m alone,” she lied, “I just…I couldn’t find my PJs in my suitcase and I was too tired when I got home so I just slept in the nude.” It was overly elaborate and specific, but it seemed to stick. “What’s the matter, Abby?”

“We can’t find Holtzmann!” Abby exclaimed. Erin’s eyes widened all over again, but Holtzmann just grinned at her, mischievously darting her tongue out to flick the swollen bundle of nerves at her centre. Erin’s whole body jerked.

“What do you mean you can’t find her?” she asked, not breaking eye contact with the blonde who was supposedly missing, a warning look in her eyes.

“She’s not here, Erin. Her phone’s here, it says so on the tracker, but we’ve looked everywhere for her and she isn’t here.”

“Oh my God,” Erin said. But it wasn’t in response to Abby – it was directed at Holtzmann, who’d decided the best course of action from here on out was to continue her ministrations, tongue working faster and firmer than before. Logic and reason told her that it was the world’s worst idea, but they were drowned out by the heat building in her and the desire coiling low in her belly.

“I’m really worried,” Abby went on. “Where could she be?”

“I don’t know--maybe she got a better offer?” Erin suggested, her voice barely level, body jerking with the sensations.

“But she had her phone with her last night at the bar. She must have been here at some point.”

“I didn’t…I didn’t s-see her.” Her words grew more and more broken with each response as Holtz brought her close to the edge. Her fingers fisted the sheets and her chest heaved.  

“Erin, are you okay? Are you sick?”

“N---Yeah, I’m not feeling great,” she replied, realising she had an out and taking it.

“Oh, poor thing,” Abby said, her sympathy evident even through the bedroom door. “Listen, Patty and I are downstairs; we’re gonna make breakfast soon. Come down and maybe have something to eat, okay? Get somethin’ solid in your system.”

“ _Yes,_ ” she agreed, but not with Abby.  

“Oh, well, good! Glad you’re enthusiastic. I’ll you downstairs in a bit.”

The footsteps outside grew softer but Erin’s moans grew louder, and in the end she had to muffle her cries with her own hand clamped over her mouth to stop from blowing her cover. It was a sight Holtzmann was entirely too pleased with herself over. When she peeked out from under the duvet, she was smiling again, and Erin was breathless.

“Are. You. _Crazy_?” she asked, between panting. “That was so risky.”

“And _so_ worth it,” Holtz replied, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

The wildness of the moment hit her, and Erin surprised both of them by pulling Holtz up towards her and kissing her. She could feel Holtz’s soft curves pressed against the length of her body, and she could taste herself in the kiss, and it was strange, but not bad-strange.

“What now?” Holtz murmured, tantalisingly rolling her hips against Erin’s, biting her bottom lip. “Round two? Or is it three?”

It was so tempting that she placed her fingertips against Holtz’s lips to shut her up.

“We can’t, Holtz.”

“Seriously?” she said, voice muffled by Erin’s hand. “You’re gonna leave me high and dry right now?”

“We’ve gotta figure out what we’re gonna do,” she snapped, her steady reason slowly coming back to her. I just lied to Abby.” Erin’s voice was stern – it _had_ to be.

Holtzmann sat up a little straighter, straddling Erin’s hips. She was right, and she _knew_ she was right. But she also knew that this bubble would burst the second they left this room, and she didn’t know if she was ready for that.

“We better get our story straight,” Erin went on, the growing panic evident in her eyes.

Holtz resisted the urge to tell her that there was precisely nothing straight about this story. 

…

It was almost half past ten when Erin came downstairs, her half-fake half-real hangover her disguise. She’d dressed herself, sort of – the cotton pyjama pants and threadbare MIT shirt she _would_ have worn to bed the night before, and a cardigan to shield her from the cool of the morning. She’d also brushed her hair. Not so that it looked ‘done’, but to rid herself of what Holtz had tastefully referred to as “sex hair”.

Though the throbbing in her head was still making itself felt, the rest of the visible symptoms were a performance: the slow, shuffling footsteps, arms wrapped around herself, the drooping eyelids. She hoped it would be convincing enough.

The polished concrete floors were cold against her bare feet as she stumbled in, trying to look as sorry for herself as possible. Abby had to believe that _this_ had caused her inability to hold a conversation earlier, and not…something else.

“Ay! You made it!” Patty greeted cheerily, beaming at her. “Boy, you’ve looked better.”

Erin joined the two of them, seated on stools around the kitchen countertop.

“I’ve felt better too,” she replied, resting her elbows on the counter.

“Aw, you poor thing,” Abby said, rubbing little circles on her back sympathetically. “I’ll make you something to eat.”

“No, no,” she protested, holding up a hand. “We’ve gotta find Holtzmann, right? Have you guys had any luck trying to track her down?”

“Nothing,” Patty answered, reaching for her purse. She dug around in there for a few seconds before pulling out a couple of aspirin and a nut bar. “Here. Take those with that.”

She smiled gratefully at Patty; she really did need that aspirin. 

“Did you try calling the bar?”

“Yeah, first thing,” said Abby. “They were no help. Said they couldn’t confirm or deny the presence of anyone at their premises.”

“So…now what?” she asked, hoping her feigned concern was convincing.

“We don’t know. Patty thinks we should go looking for her, but I think she’ll come back here and we should be here when she does.”

Patty smacked the table. “ _What_ if she _can’t_ come back? What if she’s hurt? What if she got hit by a car or somethin’?”

“Maybe I should call the hospital,” Abby suggested, worry seeping into her tone.

Erin blinked. The level of concern had just jumped up about 80 percent in about 12 seconds. “Uh, guys, she—she’s not a lost dog, okay? I’m sure she’s fine. She probably just found some place to crash.”

“Why would she not have come here? You just stormed off and she…Erin, what the hell happened last night?”

Abby’s questions were valid. And Erin wished she had answers that weren’t lies. Instead, she put forth the lines she had practiced.

“We had a stupid fight. I came home. I didn’t see her again after that.”

“A _fight_? Over what? Over that guy she chased off?” Abby asked, sounding altogether unimpressed.

“What guy?” Patty questioned. “Where the hell was I during all of this?”

“I _said_ it was stupid, okay, Abby?” Her voice was harsh, and both of them shut up. The more detail she went into, the more likely she was to slip up. Every question was a mine in this minefield. She did not need, on top of that, to be judged for her behaviour. If Abby thought fighting was a scandal, she was going to have a freaking field day when if she ever found out the rest of it.

“Wait,” Patty said, a minute later, “how did you get into the house?”

“Back door was open,” Erin replied. Another rehearsed answer. “I came in, made myself something to eat, and went to bed. I didn’t even hear you guys come home.”

“She texted me at…12:47, that she was going for a walk,” Abby said, holding up her phone as evidence. “She had to have been here at some point, because her phone’s here.”

“Why would she have come back and then gone somewhere else without taking her phone?” Patty said, smacking the table again. Erin could see the concern in her hunched shoulders and her tight jaw, and it warmed her heart the way Patty cared so hard and so much.

“I think _I_ can answer that.” A voice rang across the room, and three heads turned to spot Holtzmann, leaning nonchalantly in the far doorway, legs crossed and hands in the pockets of her rumpled suit. Her hair had been tamed into a messy bun, and her clothes, last night’s, were sloppy, and she looked more like Holtzmann now than she had in a while. And, impressively, _not_ like she’d climbed out on the balcony and down the pipe that ran straight down the outside of the house. She was all bravado and almost all of it was fake; the confidence that was usually her fuel was in short supply today.

Dressed in her suit, she certainly looked the part she was trying to play, Erin thought to herself. And remarkably different from the person she’d woken up next to.

A sigh of relief came from both Patty and Abby and they stood to meet her in the centre of the room. Erin tactfully remained seated, as if she were still angry at Holtz for what had happened at the club.

“You really will do anything for an entrance, won’t you?” Patty asked.

“Where the _hell_ have you been?!” Abby exclaimed, grabbing Holtzmann by the cheeks and simultaneously scolding and welcoming her.

“I can explain,” Holtz said, hands up in surrender.

“Start talking,” Patty demanded.

“Okay! Here’s the deal. Erin and I had this…thing.” Erin frowned at the choice of opening line. “I did something stupid and she left. I didn’t feel like going back inside, and I couldn’t go home, so I took a walk. Eventually, I ended up back at the bar. I’d planned on going in to find you, but then that bartender that I’d hooked up with earlier came outside, and we got to talking. And then…she invited me back to her place. Had her car there and everything. And I didn’t have anywhere better to be, so I said yes.”

“But why was your phone here?”

“I’m getting there, Abigail,” she replied, shushing Abby with a finger to her lips. Abby batted it away. “I asked her to stop by the house ‘cause I wanted to drop off the key for Erin.”

“But you left the back door unlocked,” Patty interjected. Erin fiddled with the hem of her T-shirt as she watched the conversation unfold. The other women seemed determined to fill all the holes in Holtz’s story.

“But I didn’t know _that,_ ” Holtz lied flawlessly. “She was asleep when I came in. I left the key in her room and I must’ve just put my phone down somewhere and forgotten it.”

“And that was at what time?” Abby asked.

“About 1:30.”

“Alright. And then what happened?”

“That’s all she wrote, really,” said Holtzmann, stuffing her hands in her pockets.

She squinted. “Really? You go missing overnight and you’re not even gonna tell us what happened?”

Holtz looked over at Erin for just a second, just a second. It was short enough that the other two might not have caught it.

“Really, nothing.” Holtz bit her lip and did her best impression of guilt. “We made out for a while. Then I crashed on her couch. She was very nice about the whole thing.”

She received little more than blank stares about this from Abby and Patty, so she crossed her heart dramatically.

“That was all, I swear,” she added to her testimony.

“Then why does my phone say you saw my text at 3:04am?” Abby held up her phone as evidence. “You said you didn’t have your phone with you.”

“That was me,” Erin quickly interjected, saving Holtz from certain peril. “I thought it might be important, so I opened it.” She halted her racing speech, looking between the faces of all three women before her. “Holtz…doesn’t have a passcode on her phone,” she added feebly.

“Well, I guess that’s everything,” Abby concluded, though she looked less than satisfied as she stashed her phone back in her pocket.

“Don’t do that again, Holtzy,” Patty said, clapping her on the back. The blonde’s petite body jolted with the slight unexpected force of the action but she smiled at its affectionate intent. “We was worried about you.”

“Holtzy sorry?” she said, in her most innocent voice.

Patty threw Abby a look then, and it seemed to remind her just how worried she _had_ been, because the next second Abby threw her arms around Holtzmann. She was met with stiff shock at first, but eventually, Holtz softened, and hugged her back.

“I thought something bad might have happened,” Abby said in Holtz’s ear. “I thought…”

“Hey,” Holtz pulled back so she could look Abby in the eyes. “It’s good. I’m fine. I’m sorry, okay?” She had already felt bad about the lie, but to know that she had caused such distress in her best friends in the world…that made it worse.

“You sure you’re alright?” she asked, feeling her forehead like she was checking for a temperature. “Nothing bad happened to you?”

“Aside from those _mean_ hickeys you got,” Patty pointed out. Erin’s eyes widened and she saw Holtz’s fingers go to the path of bruises along her neck. Both sides. One side was the work of the bartender with the pink hair, the other was her own. Holtzmann rolled her eyes. “Man, no amount of makeup is gonna cover that.”

“What about this…this fight the two of you had last night?” Abby gestured to Erin, whose eyes met Holtz’s across the kitchen. There was a long moment where nobody spoke.

“It’s okay, Abby,” Erin said, eventually. She got up out of her seat and joined the circle. “I was drunk and I overreacted and…”

“I was an idiot,” Holtz added. “Call it even?”

She winked at her across the circle and a little blush came to Erin’s cheeks and it was like nothing had changed and everything had. It was a singular moment of truth among a complex tapestry of falsehoods and ambiguities.

And then it ended, and it seemed to roll off Holtzmann like a wave against the sand.

“Who wants pancakes?” she asked, tying a patchwork apron over her suit, accompanied by the sound of cheers from the others.

…

Erin would never not be in awe of her. Come what may, she knew that to be a fact. She was watching her dance around the kitchen, flipping perfectly circular pancakes like nobody’s business, all while the very essence of _them_ hung in the balance.

At the end of it all, and last night’s events aside, that was what she found most perplexing about Holtzmann: how she could be so very herself and so not herself at the same time.

Even in the presence of Holtz’s goofy persona and glorious quirks, she could not help to feel shaken to her core about the past twelve hours. And even more confounding was the idea that Holtzmann _wasn’t._

She simply couldn’t wrap her head around the idea of _what next?_ without understanding what it was that was going through Holtzmann’s brain right now.

This weekend had been about escape. They would have to return to reality somehow. Return to how things had been before all this. They would return to busting ghosts and making breakthroughs, and she would be uptight Erin again and Holtzmann would flirt with every woman she liked in a five-mile radius and that would be the way of things. And Abby and Patty would probably go on having no idea that anything had ever been different.

Or maybe they would. Maybe Erin could learn to embrace this part of herself, the part that experienced attraction to women. Maybe she’d play the field a little. Experiment. Or not.

A plate was placed in front of her and it drew her out of her thoughts. On it was a single pancake with slices of strawberry around the edges so that it looked like a sun, two slices of banana for eyes, and a smile made of blueberries arranged into a curved line.

“Just how you like ‘em,” Holtz murmured, watching Erin carefully for her reaction, hopeful. A grin lit up her face—she was not sure if it was that there was food or that it really _was_ just how she liked them, or that Holtzmann had remembered her ever saying that. Either way, she was smiling, and Holtz was smiling back at her. Within the chaos of her, there was a moment of calm, and that was it. It was fleeting, and she was forever chasing at its heels.

…

“So, after you guys left last night,” Abby started, fork waving about in the air as she spoke. “I found Patty chatting up the DJ.”

“Excellent,” Holtzmann said, offering her fist for a celebratory bump.

“He was really _young,_ wasn’t he?” Erin asked, a little bewildered by what she was sure had to be at _least_ a twenty-year age gap.

“Yes he _was_ ,” Patty answered proudly. “He let me try on his lil’ headphone thingies.” She gestured about her ears, miming the large, sound-cancelling things that had been attached to the sides of the DJ’s head.

“Is that how the kids flirt these days?” Abby joked, her mouth full of pancake. Patty laughed and shook her head.

“Look, all I know is, I did what I had to do for the points.”

A frown crossed Abby’s face. “Hey, who ended up winning?”

Erin caught Holtz’s eye across the kitchen, as if that thought had not occurred to either of them in a long while. Truthfully, Erin had almost forgotten about the whole silly affair.

“I lost count,” Erin said, eyes on her food.

“Yeah me too,” Holtz added, way too quickly. She reached across the table and plucked half a strawberry from Erin’s plate and popped it into her mouth.

“Alright, hang on.” Patty reached for her purse, which she’d abandoned in the kitchen the night before in favour of a clutch. She dug around in there for a while, and eventually fished out a crumpled copy of Holtzmann’s pamphlet. She held it out to Abby. “Pass it round. Do the math.”

“Wow,” Abby said, examining it. “Holtzmann, you really…went into some _detail_ here.”

“You say that like you’re surprised,” she replied, looking smug.

“I mean, I’m impressed, but this whole second page is basically redundant.” The page in question was the list of higher-point items.

“I was just covering all the bases.”

“And the distinct possibility of a home run.” Abby’s eyes widened at a particular eight-point task. “Seriously, what was the actual likelihood of _any_ of us actually going home with somebody?”

Holtz thought it was a pretty good one, actually. But she shrugged, and conceded that Abby was right. Secretly, though, she was glad she had it. For reference.

The next several minutes comprised mostly of the kind of counting that involved mouthing numbers and addition done on the fingers.

“I’m done,” Patty announced.

“Me too,” said Abby.

“Done-zo,” Holtz added. She was leaning against the counter. The same one she had pressed Erin up against the night before as she kissed her.

All three of them looked at Erin expectantly.

“Hold on,” she said. “What about the potential points I could have gotten if Holtz hadn’t driven away my date?”

“Nah, we can’t get into that hypothetical stuff,” Patty said.

“I don’t know, I kinda feel like it has some validity,” Abby argued. “I saw him – he was into you. At the very least he would have bought you another drink.”

“So is that a yes? Two extra points for the imaginary drink?”

“Hold on, this is _my_ points system and you’re gonna use it against me?” Holtz interjected. She actually seemed a little taken aback by Erin’s apparent ability to cheat the system.

“Call it my revenge,” she said.

“I made you smiley-face pancakes and you’re seeking revenge? Pick your battles, Gilbert.”

Erin smiled as she took a bite of the meal in question, feeling braver with each mouthful.

“Okay, _fine._ I rule Erin gets two sympathy points,” Patty said.

“Seconded.” Abby banged the counter with her fist like she was a judge with a gavel.

 “Okay,” she said. “That brings my total to seven.”

“I got nine!” Abby boasted, beaming. “What about you, Holtz?” She looked over at the blonde.

Holtz ran her tongue over her teeth, looking a little less than satisfied. “Also seven. You told me I maxed out the bartender after the, uh, hickey incident.”

“Wait, there wasn’t anybody else all night?” Patty clarified.

Holtzmann shook her head slowly. “Nope. Business was a little…slow, I’m afraid.”

“Patty, how ‘bout you?” Abby poked her gently in the arm.

“Eleven, baby!” she rejoiced, hands in the air, smile wide as it could get. “HA! I can’t believe it. I was worried I was full of it but this just proves it – I _do_ have the most game.”

Holtzmann cracked her knuckles before lifting an invisible crown from her head and holding it out to Patty. “Congrats. I gladly concede my crown to you.”

“Who says you had it to begin with?”

“I’d just take it if I were you, Patty,” Erin advised. “It’s the best you’re gonna get.”

“I guess you right.” Patty shook Holtz’s hand firmly. “Wow. You just handed over that title like it was nothin’. This bartender girl must have been something special.”

Erin’s heart fluttered in her chest. She was right about one thing—Holtz had accepted defeat awfully easily.

“Are you gonna see her again?” asked Abby.

“Nah.” Holtz ran a hand through her hair. “You won fair and square, Patty-Cakes. I guess I just realised that there might be a few things that are more important than game.”

She didn’t dare look at Erin, then. But she wanted to. She wanted to see the look on her face when she realised that she was the thing more important.

Patty shook her head, and began clearing empty dishes. “Aw man, why you gotta taint my victory like that?”

…

“Do you think Erin’s acting a little…weird?” The question came from Abby’s mouth as her lips closed around a straw between sips of a brightly-coloured smoothie, as she lounged lazily in a deck chair beside the lap pool. There was a juxtaposition in the concern in her voice and the utter relaxation in her body.

“Uhhh…” Holtz faltered, carefully considering her answer as she swayed back and forth in the hammock on the other side of the yard. Her arm hung limply over the side and her hand grazed the soft grass below. “No weirder than usual, I guess,” she finally answered, stiffly.

“I mean, she has her quirks, but I think this is different.”

“Can you…be more specific?” Holtz asked, a dangerous step through the minefield.

She sipped her drink and thought about it. “She’s been hiding in her room, and she’s been kinda quiet all morning, like she’s all in her head.”

“That’d be the hangover,” she said casually.

“She didn’t have any more to drink than the rest of us – you seem fine, and you’re the smallest.”

Holtzmann suddenly considered faking a brutal hangover, but thought it might be a little heavy-handed.

“She doesn’t seem a little…off to you?” Abby pressed.

Holtz smacked her lips together. “I mean, maybe?” _Definitely._ Since breakfast, Erin had barely said two words to her and it was totally freaking her out. Their plan had been engineered with such haste that it had not considered much at all beyond the elaborate lie that had been constructed around their night together. “Maybe it’s me.”

“Why, ‘cause of the fight?”

“Yeah.” She swallowed. “The _fight_.”

“Where are you with this Erin thing, anyway?” Abby asked her after a quiet moment. Oh, what a question _that_ was. Abby knew she was harbouring quite the crush on the engineer, but that was the extent of it, and for now Holtz wanted to keep it that way.

“Same as ever,” she answered nonchalantly. “Confusing, frustrating, all the ups and downs of a rollercoaster without the vertigo.” It was actually quite an honest answer.

“And that’s why you sent that Rick guy running last night, right?”

Holtzmann didn’t answer right away, instead silently debating the extent to which that was true.  

“Abby, Erin Gilbert, and my feelings toward her, are one of the mysteries of the universe that science has yet to solve.”

“What’s that saying?” Abby sipped again. “‘Don’t wait for the storm to pass; learn to dance in the rain’?”

“Well,” Holtz said, rolling out of the hammock and gracelessly finding her feet. “I do like dancing.”

…

Erin had been hiding in her room for a fair chunk of the afternoon, nose buried in the pages of a book. She had read the same page over and over, but none of the words seemed to stick. She kept getting distracted by her thoughts, which pounded incessantly loud in her mind. Thoughts of Holtzmann, thoughts of beaches and kisses and soft, ivory skin. Thoughts she wasn’t even sure she should be having.

Thoughts she was still lost in when Holtz appeared in her doorway.

“Whatcha reading?” She leaned lazily against the doorframe, hoping she looked more casual than she felt.

Erin looked up at Holtz, who was barefoot, and wearing an oversized T-shirt with the Periodic Table symbols for Fluorine, Iodine and Neon arranged on the front to spell out the word ‘FINe’. She could see the strap of a swimsuit peeking out at the collar and fastening around the back of her neck.

“Oh! It’s, uh, it’s actually a memoir—” Erin started, but was promptly cut off.

“Oh my _God_ I take that back,” Holtz said, her head falling back in a feigned imitation of boredom. “Come on, you nerd, we’re going swimming. You’re gonna miss me dominate the cannonball competition.”

Erin laughed. She had no doubt that Holtzmann would be able to produce the biggest cannonball, despite being the smallest of the group. But still, the idea of being around her and the others all at once was totally overwhelming. Even her safest people right now felt precarious to her.

“I think I’m okay here, actually,” she replied, fingers tapping the cover of her book. “I wanna finish this, so…”

Holtzmann bit her lip and then, with just an ounce of hesitation, crossed the threshold into Erin’s room.

“Holtz—”

“Riddle me this,” she pressed, ignoring her, a finger boldly in the air. “If I hadn’t drive Rick away with my cruel, cruel words last night, what would you have done?”

Erin frowned, taken aback by the question, even the mention of Rick. “I don’t know.”

She phrased it differently. “How far could it have gone?”

“I don’t _know._ Why are you focussing on this? It obviously didn’t happen.”

“Just humour me.”

“Fine.” Erin snapped her book shut. “Far enough that you all would have admitted that I’m not as terrible at flirting as you all think I am. Especially you, Little Miss Tied-For-Last.”

“That’s tied for _third,_ thank you very much.” She ignored Erin’s obvious biting tone.

Erin was quiet, eyes fixed on the pages of her book but not quite seeing the words. Holtz tried a new tact, a more direct one.

“You can’t avoid me forever.” She fidgeted with the delivery, the words feeling uncomfortably demanding in her mouth.

Erin’s brows shot upward but she still looked at the pages. “Wasn’t planning on it.”

Holtzmann huffed and sat down on the furthest corner of the mattress. “Please, Erin. Please just talk to me. I’m trying to act like everything’s normal but I can’t do that when you’re being all…aloof.”

“Aloof? _Normal_?” Erin snapped her book shut and set it aside.

“You’ve barely said a word to me since this morning.”

“ _How_ can you expect me to act normal? We—” She stopped to lower her voice to a harsh whisper, in case anybody else could hear: “We _slept together_ last night! What am I even meant to do with that?”

Said aloud, the words sounded far more shocking than they felt. Holtzmann swallowed and let them roll around a little in her head.

“I’m sorry you’re so fine with this, that this is so normal for you,” Erin said, hands waving about erratically as she spoke, “but this isn’t something I just _do,_ and…”

“Okay, gonna stop you right there.” Holtz shifted so her legs were crossed in front of her, though she still kept a good distance of mattress between them. “You…you don’t actually get it, do you?”

“Get what?”

“You don’t get that last night…it actually meant something to me. Did that concept cross your mind? Or do you think I just see you as another number for the little black book?”

Erin blinked. “I…I don’t know, you just seem so…cool and collected about it.”

“Did you not see the fucking pancake I made you? _What_ about that was cool?”

She laughed at that, feeling the tension of the moment dissipate a little bit.

“Listen, Erin, really listen to what I’m saying: no part of me is just chilled out about this. You kinda caught me in a dry spell. A long one. Not for lack of opportunity -- it was a choice.” Erin was surprised by that. As surprised as she had been when she had given the winning title to Patty earlier. The Holtz she thought she knew so well continued to reveal new parts of herself. “I know you think I have this magic power or something…”

 “And _you_ don’t think that? Who gave who flirting lessons here? Who _started_ this whole competition in the first place?”

Holtzmann shrugged. “Okay, that’s fair. But it’s a lot of talk, really. ‘Cause if I was really as good at flirting as I claim I am, what happened last night might have happened a lot sooner.”

Erin spent a long moment wondering if that was true. If, in an alternate universe, Holtz might have made a move on her earlier. Kissed her one night alone in the firehouse and changed the world. She wondered what those versions of them were doing right now.

“Look,” Holtz continued, “I’m not fine with this weird purgatory we’ve gotten ourselves stuck in. Maybe I seem like I am, and if that’s the case then I obviously missed my calling as an actor.”

“That’s just you, Holtz,” Erin said. “You’re _always_ fine. It’s one of those things that make you so…”

A little smile crossed her face. “So…?” she prompted.

“I don’t think I should say.”

Holtzmann wriggled into the middle of the mattress so she was a little closer to her, but just far away enough that she couldn’t quite touch her, though she wanted to.

“If you want to just…leave this thing here, then we can,” she said solemnly. “I’ll go back to being your weird engineer friend who you slept with that one time and who knows where all the really good gay bars are for your future reference. Last night was intense for a lotta reasons. I’m sure you’ve got some wild oats to sow. What happens on vacation stays on vacation and all that.”

She frowned at this opportunity she was being handed. It seemed pretty one-sided.

“What about _you_?” she asked.

What _about_ me? These are my stupid feelings, Erin. I brought this on myself. And it’s probably gonna suck but I’m sure I’ll get over it eventually.”

She tried to think about what that would be like – about going about her life, day-to-day, knowing Holtz’s heart was hurting so, and being the only one able to change it and still choosing not to. She almost couldn’t even picture it.

“We’ve clearly got a problem here,” she went on. “We can’t go on like this. Not if we don’t want Patty and Abby to interrogate us. And normally when I’ve got somethin’ needs-a-fixin’, you’re the one I talk to. ‘Cept this time you _are_ the problem.”

“Flattery isn’t your strength,” she quipped, though she knew that truly it was.

“You know what I mean. Look, all I know is, last night…you wanted me. Last night I slept in your bed because you asked me to. And I said a lot of stuff that I probably shouldn’t have but that doesn’t make it untrue.”

“And now?”

She rose from the bed and headed for the door. “Ball’s in your court, Gilbert,” she said, looking back over her shoulder before leaving the room, Erin’s sanity and good sense in pieces.

…

It was a long time before she came downstairs to join the rest of them. Huddled up in the safety of her room, she had convinced herself she could not go anywhere lest she be exposed in her state of total insecurity.

The words on the page continued to appear as nothing more than scattered letters, evading the part of her brain that would make sense of any of them. That part was, incidentally, far too occupied trying to solve the puzzle that was her life.

She had to come to terms with the fact that this _thing,_ whatever it was – perhaps it was _many_ things – was not concrete, was not finite, could not be examined under a microscope. It had not suddenly appeared within her and it would probably never suddenly disappear.

She had not just woken up one day and been attracted to women. She had not just woken up one day and been attracted to _Holtzmann._ And yet, here she was, ticking both of those boxes that she never thought she would tick.

It seemed to her that she was too far late in her life to be experiencing this type of crisis. It was so far from the common narrative. Of course, she had heard about people leaving their husbands or wives for people of the same sex, but it was the kind of scandalised gossip one overheard in a salon or on the subway. In those stories, it always seemed like those people had long been in a deep state of denial that she herself had never really felt.

And then Holtzmann had crashed into her life, all strange and complicated and amazing. She had been that friend she had that sometimes made her face feel hot and her tummy do flips. Looking back, Erin realised that that was not friendship. That was something else entirely, something that had let itself loose in her soul last night. And God, it had been spectacular. A little messy, sure, somewhat haphazard and tentative, but spectacular all the same. She tried and failed to think of another time she had felt that way about somebody.

That was what she tried to remember when the rush of nerves hit her as she reached the bottom of the staircase. Holtz was in the kitchen in her swimsuit, dripping all over the floor as she scooped handfuls of cereal out of the box. It was a pretty glorious sight.

Erin got close enough to smell the chlorine and sunblock on her before Holtz finally heard her footsteps.

“Hi,” she greeted feebly.

Holtz set down the Cheerios box and covered her mouth as she hurried to swallow the last mouthful. “Hey,” she murmured through her fingers.

“Did you…did you win cannonball?”

“I totally dominated,” she answered, “but is that what you came down here to ask me?”

She shook her head.

“Balcony?” Holtz proposed.

“Balcony,” Erin agreed.

…

“Do you think that cloud kinda looks like a ghost?” Holtz asked, pointing and breaking the silence. The late afternoon sky was a rich blue, and Erin could not help but notice how different this view looked in the daytime. But it did not feel all that different. She was still standing here with Holtzmann, and she was still unsure of where this would lead.She had her hopes. 

Erin examined it. “I guess so. But there’s a pretty wide set of criteria for what a ghost might look like.”

“Well, all I got from that was that I’m definitely right.”

Erin’s fingers curled around the balcony ledge and she looked over Holtzmann, who was still in her bathing suit – a plain and practical black bikini top and what Erin was pretty sure were gym shorts on the bottom – and there was a small puddle forming at her feet.

“Where are the others?”

“They went to go buy stuff for dinner,” Holtz answered, wringing the water out of her hair. Erin nodded silently in response.

“We’re alone, then.”

“Yeah. For now.”

And that was it. A summary of their conundrum in two tiny utterances. This intense and wild and delicate thing existed in the shadows, and barely even then.

“Holtz,” Erin said after a moment, “I’m gonna ask you something. And I need you to answer truthfully.”

“You got it,” she replied, leaning against the ledge beside her.

“If you had your way…” her fingers twitched nervously, tapping out uneven rhythms. “What would this be?”

Holtzmann whistled. “That’s a humdinger of a question, Dr Gilbert.”

“Take your time,” she assured her, though she really just wanted her to hurry the hell up and answer.

“I don’t know.” Her eyes were fixed on the line where the sea touched the sky. “I’d kinda talked myself out of ever having a choice in the matter.”

Erin frowned at her. “How come?”

“ _Because,_ Erin, that’s what you do when you like someone who you think is never gonna like you back. Squash it down, act like it’s fine, even though you’re dying on the inside.”

“Is that…” Her shoulders slumped. “Is that really how you felt?”

“Sometimes,” Holtz answered. “Not all the time. Just when you were…close. Or when you laughed at one of my jokes. Or when one of my overt attempts to flirt with you went entirely over your pretty little head.” Her eyes went all dreamy, remembering old heartache as if it were a fond friend rather than a brutal enemy. She tucked a strand of Erin’s hair behind her ear.

“And when I kissed that guy last night,” Erin added.

“Yeah,” Holtz said, nodding slowly, looking pained. “Then, too.”

A breeze floated by, catching loose strands of her hair in its embrace.

“What about now?” she dared to ask.

“Now? Now, it’s much worse,” Holtzmann said, straightening herself. “Now, I know what I’m missing out on.” That was the honest truth of it, the temptation to kiss her stronger than ever now that she had tasted her. “But it’s like I said, you know? This is my problem. And I’m never going to blame you, Erin. Even if you _did_ deserve it, I wouldn’t. I like you too much.”

This was the Holtzmann that Erin ached for when she was not there. The one whose absence left the deepest void.

“I like you too,” Erin choked out, trying to stop her voice from shaking. Her knuckles where white, the words that had weighed so heavy on her finally setting her free.

“Erin, you don’t have to say—”

“No,” she said, firmer. More certain. “I _do,_ Holtzmann.” She let go of the ledge, both literally and metaphorically, and faced her. “Look at where we are. Look what we’re doing to each other. Denying it would be just stupid.”

Holtz’s eyes were swimming with conflict, the push and pull of happiness and reservation that accompanied this kind of confession wherever it went.

“I can’t help but think that throwing this away and blaming it on the sun and the sea would be a huge waste,” she admitted. And she waited. She waited for Holtz to stop searching her for truths, for her expression to change, for her stare to become a little less fixed. “Don’t you think?”

“Oh, I think,” Holtz replied, a crooked grin spreading across her face. “I think very much.”

Erin felt that smile against her lips, then, as Holtzmann kissed her, long and full. and Holtz’s arms snaked around her waist to pull her as close as she could get. Her own hands rested on the engineer’s cheeks, her skin cool under her fingers. Their hearts thumped wildly in their chests, drumming out a beat that grew only faster.

“Hey,” Erin whispered, breaking just far enough away to speak, her hands moving to rest on Holtzmann’s shoulders. “Question.”

Holtz’s fingers, which had been toying with the hem of Erin’s T-shirt, stilled. “Your thought process truly astounds me.”

“I know. Sorry. But – okay, you know how we didn’t count any of our points after—”

Holtzmann laughed. “Oh, way ahead of you.”

Erin’s brows shot upward. “ _And_?”

“You deserve your own imaginary crown.”

“Yes!” she cheered skyward in victory. “By how much?”

“Let’s just say we gamed Patty and Abby under the table.”

Erin tried to hide how proud she was, but she couldn’t help it. It was the icing on the cake.

“Wow, after everything that’s happened, you’re still this excited about winning the dumb flirting contest?” Holtzmann was amazed. Erin usually had that effect on her.

Erin stepped back from her, a smile playing at her lips. Holtz watched her move away, waiting for her next move.

“The student,” Erin said, hands clasped behind her back, “has become the master.”

“Now _hold_ on—”

“Uh-uh-uh!” She held up a finger. “You conceded to Patty – you can let me have this.”

Holtzmann sighed. “Okay, fine. Master. You. Congrats.”

“Thank you.” Erin bowed ceremoniously and Holtz shook her head like she was annoyed, but she was smiling. It was the most full circle of moments, her glory wrapped in giddy lust and free from self-doubt and worry, if only for a short while.

“Follow up question to your question.” She made finger guns at the physicist. “What would the master do if…I asked her out?” Suddenly she was sheepish, maybe even nervous.

Erin looked taken aback. “Like…like a date?”

Holtz nodded. “Like a date. That _is_ what normal people do when they like each other, right?”

“I think normal people wait until _after_ the first date to sleep together,” Erin quipped.

“Well…” She closed the distance between them, interlacing their fingers. Erin’s breath was warm on her skin, her lips temptingly close. She waggled her eyebrows playfully. “We can do that too, if you wanna?”

Erin sucked in a breath, feeling the butterflies in her stomach return for one last flight. “Why wait until then?” she asked, almost not believing the words coming out of her own mouth.

“Why, Dr Gilbert,” Holtz exclaimed, scandalised. “Maybe you _do_ have game after all.”

Erin blushed – of _course_ she blushed. “I think it only works on you, Holtzmann.”

 _And how._ “Who says that’s a bad thing?” she replied, and kissed her again.

They were too wrapped up in each other to hear the car pulling up in the driveway, or the rear gate opening, or the footsteps from below.

Or the sound of Patty begrudgingly handing over a twenty dollar bill to a gleeful Abby, who accepted it with a cocky, “Told ya so.”

“They tied for last place and they’re _still_ getting more action than us,” Patty whispered, gathering up the grocery bags at her feet before hauling them inside, shaking her head.

“Can’t win ‘em all,” she replied, stuffing the money in her pocket and hurrying in behind her before she was spotted, a great big grin on her face.

Up on the balcony, Erin pulled back, eyes wide. “Did you hear something?” she asked, sounding alarmed.

Holtz placed open mouthed kisses along Erin’s jaw, enjoying herself far too much to stop to listen. “Don’t. Think. So.”

“Hey, _lovebirds_!” A shout came from downstairs, far too loud and clear to ignore. They both froze. Holtz felt Erin’s fingers digging into her arms, leaving tiny half-moon marks in the skin.

“Oh my God,” Erin mouthed. Holtzmann shushed her.

“Get your butts down here!” came the voice again: Patty’s. “Last one down’s doing all the dishes!”

There was a frozen silence between them, like two deer caught in the same set of very bright headlights.

Then, suddenly, Holtz pressed a chaste and fast kiss to Erin’s mouth. “Enjoy the dishes,” she said, before bolting inside and down the stairs, Erin hot on her heels.

It was the both of them that ended up in rubber gloves after dinner, but both of them conceded it was more than worthwhile.

Tied for last place wasn’t so bad when they were together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wowzers. It's 2:17am here and I have to be up in five hours for work, but I just had to get this out of my system. 
> 
> We made it to the end in one piece!
> 
> This story has been such a joy to write. I have truly loved every minute of it and I have adored bringing these ladies to life. I can't believe that what started out as a short, fun little story ended up being the 3rd longest story I've ever written. That is CRAZY. 
> 
> I could have edited and edited away at this chapter -- I wanted it to be so many things and I hope it was a satisfying ending for all of you. 
> 
> I cannot thank you all enough for your support, kudos and wonderful comments over these past few months. You were all so motivating and encouraging and it was my pleasure to give you guys this story. This was my first GB story but I think it's safe to say it won't be my last. (Open to the possibility of doing a few bits and pieces for this 'verse in the future? Maybe?)
> 
> Once again: my tumblr is belletylers if any of you ever wanna chat! Sending my love to each and every one of you.


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